Las Vegas Raiders general manager Tom Telesco is just the latest member of the organization to shoot down Detroit Lions cornerback Terrion Arnold's story that the Raiders had a "coin toss" to decide between drafting he and tight end Brock Bowers with the No. 13 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.
Both assistant general manager Champ Kelly and head coach Antonio Pierce have denied that was the case, with Pierce saying Bowers was the pick all along. Pierce also denied that there was any coin toss.
On Thursday, Telesco had a funny quote on the subject.
"Typically, I use a magic 8-ball and not a coin," Telesco said to Mike Yam on NFL Total Access. "But no, part of that draft process, and we do this really two weeks, we'll go through all the different scenarios of what could happen in the first round and how we would react to is and discuss it. When you're picking 13, there aren't that many scenarios to go through. So obviously we had gone through the scenario of players being gone and Brock Bowers is there, and we discussed in a small group -- if that happened like, hey, we're gonna take Brock. So we had gone through the process.
"On draft day, certainly in the first round and a little bit in the second round, there's not a whole lot of discussion when you're on the clock because you've already gone through the scenario of what could play out and what you're going to do. So that's what happened with Brock."
If Arnold did indeed talk to someone from the Raiders, the "coin toss" comment was almost certainly figurative and not literal. Whatever the case may be, clearly Las Vegas isn't subscribing to that, whether literal or figurative.
