According to a tweet from the Raiders themselves, the team will have a player ranked on the NFL's Top 100 Players list somewhere between 51 and 60. The tweet asks fans to speculate on who the player will be. There are only a few main suspects, but there is another clue after the jump.
Next @nflnetwork #nfltop100 show is Wednesday at 5 pm PT and Raiders will have a player ranked between 51-60, who do you think it will be?
— OAKLAND RAIDERS (@RAIDERS) May 21, 2012
The players that sprung to mind immediately were Carson Palmer, Darren McFadden, and Richard Seymour. They are the three main stars on the Raiders and the players most likely to be ranked highly by their peers.However, CSN's Paul Gutierrez provides us with a further bit of info:
Just received email that @Raiders player on Wed. NFL Network Top 100 players of 2012, plays on offense and ranked between 60-51. Guesses?
— Paul Gutierrez (@PGutierrezCSN) May 21, 2012
So that narrows it down to McFadden and Palmer. Both of these players have pros and cons to be considered when speculating over which will be ranked here. Firstly, while Palmer is an excellent quarterback he is on the downside of his prime. He will have less wear and tear than many other quarterbacks of his age, having sat his entire first year and half of last year, in addition to missing time at the beginning of his prime due to injury. He is in good physical shape and should hold up for a few more years. But is he considered good enough by his peers to be ranked here?
Conversely, McFadden is the complete package at running back but has consistently missed time due to injury. He is a top-5 RB when healthy, but is rarely so. It's hard to look at his stats and say that he is a top-60 player in the league, because he simply hasn't been on the field enough to rack up the numbers necessary for that sort of determination. However, this list may be more about talent and pure skill level than about accumulated stats, which is why McFadden is a consensus top-two-rounds fantasy player and why he most likely will be the Raiders player ranked in the top 60 on the NFL's list.