Few, if any, NFL owners and executives valued speed as much as Al Davis when he was running the Raiders. When the team selected Tennessee wide receiver Dont’e Thornton Jr. in the fourth round of the 2025 NFL Draft, it was hard not to think that Davis would have approved of the selection.
Thornton blew everyone away at the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine when he posted a 40-yard dash time of 4.30 seconds. That number only gets more impressive when you realize Thornton measures at 6-foot-5 and 205 pounds.
That combination of size and speed is rare, and current Raiders owner Mark Davis said his father would have loved Thornton.
“Mark joked that was the Al Davis pick of this draft,” Spytek told the team’s official website. “The height, weight, speed, raw traits, athleticism, speed, and I think it’s just focusing on what he can do and what he can be. … You watch his target tape, I think it’s pretty impressive. And we think he hasn’t hit his ceiling yet.”
Davis wouldn’t have been alone in his appreciation of Thornton’s physical traits. New offensive coordinator Chip Kelly said Thornton’s “unique” tools will make him incredibly difficult to defend at the NFL level.
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“There’s not a lot of humans on this planet that do that,” Kelly said. “And I think if you had to draw up an outside receiver, you would pick that type of body type, someone that’s got length, someone that’s got a huge catch radius, but…
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