Spending most of their draft picks on offense so far, the Las Vegas Raiders have returned to giving the other side of the ball some love.
With the 135th pick of the 2025 NFL Draft, the Raiders selected South Carolina defensive tackle Tonka Hemingway.
Defensive line was a major point of contention for the Raiders all of last season. Ballyhooed free agent acquisition Christian Wilkins is still up in the air from a health perspective, and top edge rushers in Maxx Crosby and Malcolm Koonce had their 2024 campaigns wrecked by injury. The team found out the hard way that reinforcements on the defensive line are paramount to keeping production strong, so they chose to land Hemingway here.