Raiders’ 2022 draft reshaped by Davante Adams trade, with Zamir White among class to follow

The Las Vegas Raiders’ 2022 NFL draft class was unusually small and oddly shaped by one major move: the team traded away its first- and second-round picks to the Green Bay Packers to acquire wide receiver Davante Adams. As a result, the Raiders’ draft haul was limited to six selections, all made in the third round or later, a structure that tends to narrow the margin for error when it comes to finding immediate contributors.

That context matters because Adams was the centerpiece of the trade, and the Raiders’ draft framework followed. In other words, Las Vegas was not building from the top of the board in 2022, and instead leaned on later-round swings to round out the roster behind the trade acquisition. Yahoo Sports’ roundup of the 2022 class frames this as a high-leverage exercise for the players drafted in the third round and beyond, including Zamir White, the running back selected by the Raiders in that class.

The “where are they now?” format, as presented by the Yahoo Sports piece, is designed to evaluate outcomes from that later-round group. The question is not simply whether a player stayed in the organization, but how their development translated over time, whether they found roles on offense or special teams, and what their professional trajectory has looked like since draft night.

Looking at the Raiders’ 2022 draft in this way also highlights the inherent tension between instant impact and long-term roster construction. Trading top-end draft resources for a proven receiver typically accelerates the team’s competitive window. But it also reduces the number of opportunities to add young talent in the rounds where teams most often identify depth, athletic upside, and near-term starters.

For the Packers, the trade represents the opposite side of that trade-off: acquiring earlier draft capital gave Green Bay additional opportunities to replenish its roster through the draft. For both franchises, the 2022 class review becomes a practical way to evaluate the broader trade outcome, not just Adams’ arrival but how the Raiders’ remaining selections performed in subsequent seasons.

As of publication of the Yahoo Sports “where are they now?” piece on July 1, 2026, the focus is retrospective, grounded in the idea that six picks, all from the third round onward, create a limited pool of players to carry forward the momentum of a trade-driven roster change. Readers tracking the Raiders’ recent personnel choices will likely look for whether the later-round group provided steady value and whether individual development paths aligned with the expectations that come with committing draft picks to a trade centerpiece.

The next thing to watch, if you are following this roster story, is how franchises handle similar balancing acts in subsequent offseasons: whether teams with aggressive trade targets maintain enough early-draft flexibility to sustain depth and create competition internally. In the Raiders’ case, the 2022 class review suggests that, at least on paper, the team’s ability to supplement the Adams trade depended heavily on later-round hits and growth.