General Manager John Spytek and Head Coach Pete Carroll held their post-draft press conference Thursday evening and discussed Round 1 of the 2025 NFL Draft, the process that led to selecting Ashton Jeanty and more.

Here are three takeaways from the Raiders' night one post-draft press conference:

1. What Spytek and Carroll liked about Ashton Jeanty

When asked what stood out about Ashton Jeanty as a prospect, Pete Carroll first pointed to his elusiveness as a runner.

"There's a lot of things to talk about, but one of the things is he was hard to tackle," Carroll said. "I mean, guys couldn't get him on the ground. ... That skill to make people miss and to bounce off tackles and to use the force of the tacklers, he had marvelous talent in that regard."

"I think the word is dynamic for us," Carroll added. "He has the ability to do all of it. He can run with power. He can run in short yardage areas and find the spacing that he needs to make the plays, and he's got that marvelous ability, just on any play, he can score, and that's just such an exciting aspect to add to our football team. We just feel very fortunate."

In addition to what they saw on film, the Raiders spent extensive time vetting Jeanty's personality and background.

"We did a very complete process with him," Carroll said. "John organized it, we saw him at the Combine, and we saw him in the 30 visit here. And so, we really had tremendous insights into the person and his goals, his desires, his makeup, his mentality. I thought it was an excellent job. We were very committed because we had so much information."

According to Spytek, Jeanty's love for the game was something they valued as well.

"He's got such a unique story," Spytek said. "I'm really excited for you guys to meet him. ... He comes from a military family, and his dad was stationed, I think he told us in Naples, and here's this kid that's got this love affair with football and he's in Naples, Italy, trying to figure out how to play football. ... And then his dad finished his career in the military, and they got to kind of pick where they wanted to live, and they picked the Greater Dallas Area because of the quality of football there. As a junior, he's playing behind a guy that's a running back - and he's at Central Florida now, he told us - so he played slot receiver, and all he ever wanted to do was play football. He's a physical runner, but he's a dynamic runner, and we just kind of fell in love with his story and his love affair with football."

2. Adding Jeanty to the offense

The age-old draft debate is whether to draft the best player available or to draft for positional need. In Spytek's eyes, selecting Jeanty checked both boxes.

"It's one of those deals where it meets the need and the best player meet together, and you kind of feel like that's a perfect storm at that point too, and it's just too much to ignore at that point," Spytek said. "He's the perfect player for us this year, and we were thrilled to make him a Raider."

Jeanty is the latest addition to a Raiders offense that Spytek believes can be much improved from a season ago, when the Silver and Black scored just 18.2 points per game.

"I mean Brock [Bowers] obviously had a fantastic rookie season, and Jakobi [Meyers] is a great, great slot player for us and had a great, his best season in the NFL last year too," Spytek said. "And now we add another dynamic weapon to it with Ashton. We like our offensive line and how it's coming together, and then obviously putting the quarterback back there that can lead and rally the guys and play tough and make good decisions and then throw the ball really to all levels of the field.

"I feel like - I think Coach [Carroll] does too, and Chip [Kelly] does too - we've gotten harder to defend, but we still have two more days of the draft and undrafted free agency and there's always players that pop later too. So, our work is not even close to being done, but I think we're off to a good start and tonight certainly is a big boost to that."

3. Recapping Day 1 and looking ahead to Rounds 2-3

There were fireworks to start the draft as Jacksonville traded up with Cleveland to the second overall pick. The Raiders stayed put at six and took last season's Heisman runner-up.

"We had a sense mid-day today that there was maybe some action up there, not quite sure who it was, but we just prepare for all the situations," Spytek said. "And listen, if Ashton [Jeanty] would have gotten picked at five, then we would have been prepared with the next guy to pick, and we would have been super excited about that player, too. So, we stacked the board in a way where the top guy comes off the board, and the fact that it was Ashton, we're thrilled about."

With Round 1 of the 2025 NFL Draft complete, Spytek and Carroll turn their attention to the next eight picks they hold.

"Nothing much surprises me in the draft anymore," Spytek said. "It's wildly unpredictable. We all do this a long time, you never know when quarterbacks are going to go or running backs. You just try to prepare for every scenario. I don't think anything really surprised me tonight. When I look at our board, I see a lot of good players that are going to be available at 37 tomorrow and maybe an opportunity to move down and get a few more picks to get more of those players. We'll have a good plan in place."