Many expected Terrion Arnold to go earlier than he did in the 2024 NFL Draft, with the Detroit Lions ultimately stopping the Alabama cornerback's first-round slide by selecting him No. 24 overall. According to Arnold, the Las Vegas Raiders nearly swiped him much earlier, only to instead take tight end Brock Bowers at No. 13 overall because of ... a coin toss.
"(The Lions) knew that the Raiders were a possibility," Arnold told "The Next Round" podcast this week. "And actually the Raiders coach, they called me after the draft, and they were like, 'We actually had a coin toss between you and Brock Bowers. It landed on him.' I was like, 'Oh wow.'"
However, Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce said neither a coin flip nor phone call occurred.
"No call, and no coin flip," Pierce told ESPN's Ryan Clark. "As soon as the last two quarterbacks went off the board, we said Bowers all the way." Pierce also said the Bowers pick was decided before the Raiders were on the clock.
General manager Tom Telesco echoed Pierce's denial.
"Typically, I use a magic 8-ball and not a coin," Telesco joked on NFL Network. "But no, part of that draft process ... we'll go through all the different scenarios of what could happen in the first round and how we would react to it 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 (happens), like, 'Hey, we're gonna take Brock.' So we had gone through the process."
It's possible Arnold was simply using a figure of speech in his initial comments.
At any rate, Bowers is in Las Vegas, Arnold is in Detroit and both rookies figure to have sizable roles for their respective teams in 2024. Arnold celebrated his Lions destination on draft night; while he was born and raised in Florida, he told the Motor City crowd after being drafted that Detroit had brought him "home" and "right where I need to be."
