Will Brock Bowers suffer the same fate in Vegas that Kyle Pitts did in Atlanta?

Everyone knew Brock Bowers was going to be a first-round pick, the question was how high would he go and which team would take the best and most versatile tight end in the country and turn him into their offensive superstar.

The answer came with the 13th overall pick when Bowers heard his name called by...the Las Vegas Raiders?

The Raiders. A team that's had enough turmoil over the last 10 years to last a lifetime. A team that gave away a franchise quarterback in favor of Jimmy Garoppolo, rookie Aidan O'Connell, and Brian Hoyer.

Garoppolo lasted just one season in Las Vegas, which leaves the Raiders with the aforementioned O'Connell (who showed little promise in his rookie starts), Gardner Minshew (who is playing for his fourth team in five seasons), and former undrafted free agent Anthony Brown Jr.

In short, the Raiders have a quarterback problem, and instead of looking to solve that with one of the many highly-regarded quarterbacks in the 2024 Draft class, they picked Brock Bowers.

It had to be mixed emotions for Georgia fans, who were thrilled to see one of the greatest Bulldogs of all time picked in the early going of the draft, but picked by a team that currently has no one to get him the ball and let him utilize his skills.

That is, of course, unless Bowers learned to play quarterback over this offseason (which isn't too far-fetched).

The entire scenario smacks of another ballyhooed tight end coming out of a little swamp college in Florida, Kyle Pitts.

Pitts was all the rage with his performance for the Gators, and when he was selected by the Atlanta Falcons with the No. 4 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, fans wondered if an aging and declining Matt Ryan would benefit from having Pitts at his disposal.

The answer was no, and after Ryan was traded to the Colts in 2022, Pitts has become the forgotten man in Atlanta -- a team that has been in the kind of quarterback funk the Raiders find themselves in now.

Will Brock Bowers become a missing man in Las Vegas?

It's obvious the Raiders were going for the best player available, but is that gambit appropriate when your primary need is the most important player on the team? Instead, they opted to put a high-powered engine in a car with no wheels and no steering.

Yeah, it'll sound great in the garage, but you aren't driving it anywhere.

Now, Brock Bowers can probably make any quarterback look ten times better, but ten times O'Connell, Minshew, and Brown probably still only adds up to ten.

The bottom line, Bowers deserved better. While he has no control over who drafts him, he's a player who could have become a game-changer for teams like the Chargers, Titans, or (cough) the Falcons, all of whom went in odd directions with their first-round picks.

The Bulldog Nation wants the best for their most beloved players, and the Las Vegas Raiders are far from the best place for Brock Bowers. If the Raiders don't find someone to get him the ball, it will be a long rookie contract duration for Bowers.

There are still some quarterbacks available for the Raiders, and maybe someone like Spencer Rattler, Jordan Travis, or Sam Hartman can be that guy. For Bowers's sake, let's hope so. But I wouldn't hold your breath.