By Allison Covey (@allisoncovey ):
With the NFL Draft to take place later this month, the San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland Raiders have the ninth and 10th picks in the first round, respectively.
With these top-10 spots, how will that help the two teams reach Atlanta, the site of Super Bowl 53 next February?
As both Bay Area teams look to fill open spots on their team, last season’s efforts of changing their rosters did not go unnoticed for the upcoming season.
The first nine weeks of the season was dreadful not only for the 49ers, but for the city of San Francisco, as it entered week 10 winless.
But the best thing that could have happened to the 49ers, did, as they received Jimmy Garoppolo from the New England Patriots at the end of October.
Garoppolo’s first start was on December 3, leading the ‘Niners to their second win of the season.The last five games to follow were quarterbacked by Garoppolo and you guessed it, they won all five. The city went nuts. Not because they Jimmy G was winning, but because they found the QB of the future.
Even comparisons between Jimmy and Joe [Montana] were spilling across social media.
This past February, San Francisco made Jimmy Garoppolo the league’s highest paid player with a 5-year, 137.5 million-dollar contract.
As for the Raiders, it was announced in March 2017 that they will be moving to Las Vegas to begin the 2020 season and some people believe that by leaving Oakland the team is betraying the city.
As far as what that means for their Super Bowl hopes, not sure. Good news however, the revival of the Gruden era is on the horizon.
Oakland started out last season 4-5 before going into the bye week. They finished the season 6-10, losing the last four games of the season.
Not only did the Raiders finish the season 6-10, they also lost their head coach of two years, Jack Del Rio, and brought back former head coach Jon Gruden.
The struggle was not that Del Rio was not a good coach, but the fact that he brought the team to the highest point he could.
Last season was rough for both teams but I personally think Garoppolo’s talented future and the signing of Richard Sherman will bring the 49ers closer to winning the Super Bowl.
For the Raiders, they still need more time to develop their team with the new head coach. I think that once they move to Las Vegas and into a new stadium will be when the Raiders will be able to find the new energy to win.