Ziegler: Not the Best Athlete Available But Best Player

As the 2022 NFL Draft inches closer, Las Vegas Raiders General Manager Dave Ziegler is also getting his final tweaks in.

One of those is the concept of how he’s approaching this year’s, and really all NFL Drafts.

The big thing for Ziegler is the fact that it isn’t necessarily important to get the best athlete available but rather the best player that is available.

“Yea, well, I wouldn't necessarily say best athlete available, but I would say the best player available,” Ziegler said. “Again, that best player available, going back to the traits that I talked about, it's going to start there.”

Ziegler also reiterated that it doesn’t really matter the player's position is, presumably because he is a believer in using the free agency to the full extent possible.

“We want the best available players regardless of position,” Ziegler said. “That's how we want to continue to build the team.”

Ziegler believes in grabbing the best available player first. He emphasizes it again here.

“I think if you're drafting good football players, you're making good choices,” Ziegler said. “And so, I know a lot of people have talked about it when you kind of overextend just to draft a need, you can often pass over good football players who can help your team.

“I think that can be a slippery slope if that's kind of the way you approach it.”

Ziegler has already said on the record that he wants to build depth at pretty much every position on the team. Grabbing the best player available at each point of the process allows Ziegler and the Raiders to build that depth effectively during the NFL Draft.

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