Speaking Monday morning at the NFL Annual League Meeting, General Manager John Spytek touched on a variety of topics including the trade for quarterback Geno Smith, his evaluation of the current roster and the team's approach to the 2025 NFL Draft.

Here are a few of the top takeaways from Spytek's media availability in Palm Beach, Florida.

Completing his first trade

Eight days after signing Maxx Crosby to a multi-year contract extension, Spytek made his biggest move as a first-time general manager, trading a third-round pick (92nd overall) to Seattle for quarterback Geno Smith. He spoke Monday about that process and the feeling of negotiating his first trade as the leader of an NFL front office.

"It was cool," Spytek said. "You're after a quarterback, you're after an established quarterback, you're after a quarterback that the head coach believes in and really wants to get on the roster. You don't want to screw it up, but you want to do a really good trade value for the organization. Everything you give draft-wise, money-wise is one less thing that you can do here. So, trying to find the right spot historically, looking at all the other trades of quarterbacks in their 30s, the Matt Ryans of the world, Tyrod Taylor, you kind of look at all those and then you try to just figure out like, what should this look like? What's about right?

"But I had a front-row seat for years with [Buccaneers General Manager] Jason [Licht], and that was one of the great things that he gave me was the access to see all these things even though it wasn't me pulling the final trigger. I had a pretty good feel for it. Ultimately, we made a deal that we felt kind of mirrored what was done in the past for these types of quarterbacks."

Building a draft strategy

With the sixth overall pick and nine total selections in the 2025 NFL Draft, an important month of preparation lies ahead for the Silver and Black.

"Draft season really is one of my favorite times, if not my favorite time of the year," Spytek said. "The team-building part of it and the control that you have, it's unlike any other part of team-building. I don't want to share all our secrets, but I think it's a pretty deep draft class overall. And I think you guys probably know some of the positions where it's pretty deep at. Over the next three and a half weeks here or whatever, we're just going to try to put together a great plan to manipulate it and build the team the right way. It's not necessarily about adding talent or the best player here, here, here. It's about how do we put it all together, the puzzle and make it make sense."

Of course, a big piece of that puzzle is the quarterback and while Spytek is excited about adding Geno Smith to the roster, he's not ruling out adding another quarterback to the position room.

"From a team-building standpoint, I don't think it changes our approach at all," he said of the trade. "We're deep into the evaluation of the quarterbacks in this class and we're going to stay in that too. We could take one anywhere. We'll see. But I feel like we got a guy that can go play football right now, so the need and the anxiety at that position is not as high maybe as it was a month ago."

Evaluating the wide receiver room

Including tight end Brock Bowers, the Raiders return their top three receivers from 2024. Jakobi Meyers is coming off the first 1,000-yard season of his career and Tre Tucker added 47 receptions for 539 yards and three touchdowns.

But outside of Meyers and Tucker, the other seven wide receivers on the Raiders roster have a combined 33 career receptions. Spytek addressed the team's interest in continuing to adding to that position group.

"We've got a good one in Jakobi. I've always been a fan of Tre [Tucker]," he said. "We're looking at some other guys that are kind of still out there in free agency right now. ... And I think it's a pretty solid draft class too from the top all the way through the first probably 15 guys in the draft class. There are some good players. One of the things that we got really good at in Tampa is finding receivers all over the place.

"We want to have an explosive playmaker out there and if we can find one, we'll do it. But we're in such a unique position with that that I'd be remiss if I didn't count Brock in that too. Brock kind of functions to me like a legit number one. I mean, he's just different, and I know he's not the speed guy down the field and all that. But he's a problem."

Competition on the offensive line

The Raiders added guard Alex Cappa to the roster on March 5, giving the team another experienced option on the offensive line. As the team nears the beginning of the 2025 offseason program, Spytek said competition will determine who takes the field as starters on the interior offensive line.

"I think we've got a good group of four guys in there that have played in NFL games with JPJ [Jackson Powers-Johnson] and Jordan [Meredith] and Dylan [Parham] and 'Cap' now, and it'll bring out competition. … We're going to have competition. Nothing's promised to anybody. I know JPJ was first-team All-Rookie last year. I mean, everyone's going to have to earn it. So, a totally new start here."