Georgia football star Brock Bowers, the best tight end in the country, has been selected No. 13 overall in the NFL Draft by the Las Vegas Raiders.
Brock Bowers is headed to Sin City. With the No. 13 pick in Thursday’s NFL Draft, the Las Vegas Raiders selected the Georgia football standout making him the first Bulldog off the board.
NFL teams have been coveting Bowers since the moment he stepped onto campus in Athens. He was a huge component of the nation’s most successful program during his three years with the Bulldogs and his athleticism makes him a potential star at the next level.
Of course, there are still questions that the Raiders must answer. Those questions will directly impact Bowers.
First of all, who will be their quarterback? That position was a disaster for the franchise last season and the Raiders did nothing to solidify it prior to the draft.
Right now, the two options to start for Vegas are career backup Gardner Minshew or 2022 fourth-round pick Aidan O’Connell. In other words, it might be tough for Bowers to get the ball unless the Raiders make a significant and unexpected QB splash before the season begins.
What’s more, last season, Vegas selected Notre Dame tight end Michael Mayer with the No. 35 overall pick (second round) in the draft. This past season, he caught 27 passes for 304 yards and two scores as a rookie. Now, it is fair to wonder how Vegas will deploy Bowers and Mayer together in an offense that already struggles to distribute the football to its playmakers via the forward pass.
Bowers is now the 16th first-round pick from Georgia in the Kirby Smart era. This is also the seventh straight year that the program has produced a first-round pick in the NFL Draft. Of that group, Bowers is only the second offensive skill-position player behind Sony Michel in 2018.