Raiders prepare Mike Mayock, Jon Gruden with practice drafts

[Rusher]

Those area scouts the Raiders sent home are missing all the fun.

Mike Silver of NFL Network reports that the Raiders have conducted practice drafts this week, with G.M. Mike Mayock and coach Jon Gruden making the picks under the pressures of the same time clock that will be used on Thursday night, when the Raiders have three first-round picks.

The practice sessions make sense for Mayock, a top media draft expert who never has been involved in actually drafting players. During the fake draft, coaches and personnel executives who weren’t kicked out of the building this weekend pretended to be other General Managers, and they made trade proposals to Mayock and made picks “while Mayock oversaw the Raiders’ hypothetical operation.”

As Gruden, who has final say over all aspects of the Raiders’ actual operation, undoubtedly ensured that Mayock made good on Gruden’s admonition to not mess it up.

And it’s a very good thing that the area scouts weren’t there to spill the beans about this aspect of the team’s super-secret pre-draft processes, since it allowed Mayock and/or Gruden to spill the beans themselves.