Raiders pick West Virginia safety Karl Joseph in NFL draft

OAKLAND - This offseason, the Raiders lost a hard-hitting defensive back who became a cornerstone of their defense. And maybe found another one to replace him.

Charles Woodson has retired, but Karl Joseph, the newest Raider, could help make up for his absence.

“It’s going to be a big shoe to fill, but I’m not looking to do that,” Joseph said by phone from Haiti, where he spent Thursday, the first night of the NFL draft, with his mother’s family. “He’s obviously a future Hall of Famer, a great one and one of the greatest to ever play. All I can do is just come in and try to do my job and be the best Karl I can be.”

The West Virginia safety is known for his energy, his ability to track the ball and, more than anything else, his ferocious hits.

“By watching the tape, you just see, you can feel his passion,” Oakland general manager Reggie McKenzie said. “You can feel his intensity in the way he plays. You can feel his toughness. He has a very aggressive mentality. He’s versatile. He can play all over the field, and he’ll run and hit anything that moves.”

With all of that, Joseph went a little higher than expected. Safeties tend not to be valued highly these days, and this one is coming off an ACL injury that wiped out most of his senior season.

McKenzie insisted Joseph checked out fine medically. The player said his rehab has gone well, but it doesn’t sound like he’ll do much at the Raiders’ rookie minicamp in two weeks.

“I’ve been running, been doing some light cutting and light change of direction,” Joseph said. “It’s been a very tough month with all the traveling, not being able to really focus very hard on my rehab. So right now I’m just going to have to get right back and put all my focus and time into rehab right now and make sure I’m ready by training camp.”

Another injury-affected player seemed to be in the mix when the Raiders’ turn came at No. 14. It seemed they might snap up versatile UCLA linebacker Myles Jack, a certain top-five talent until rumors began to circulate that his surgically repaired knee has a degenerative problem. Jack would have been a popular choice, but McKenzie stuck to his board and went with Joseph.

Asked about Jack, McKenzie said: “I’m not going to get into guys we considered. Who we considered was Karl Joseph, and we got him.”

Joseph had five interceptions in four games last year. But he hurt his right knee Oct. 6 in a non-contact practice drill and didn’t play again.

The Raiders had enough film on Joseph to know he was their pick.

“He’s a guy that is very versatile,” coach Jack Del Rio said. “He can play all levels of your defense. He can come off the edge as a blitzer. He can play down in the box. He can play center field. He’s a guy that does a great job taking angles, and he’s an effective and efficient hitter and tackler. He plays with great temperament. We just think he’s a really good football player.”

A lot of insiders agreed.

NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock, in particular, is a fan. “Every year I get a couple guys I love,” Mayock said in the run-up to the draft. “They aren’t necessarily first-round picks. (This year) it’s Karl Joseph from West Virginia. When I put the tape in I started laughing. I said this is my guy. His range, his game against Oklahoma was awesome.”

Joseph had an interception, a sack and five tackles against the Sooners.

Pro Football Focus, which watches all of a player’s snaps in evaluating him, rated Joseph the top safety prospect in the draft and a low first-round pick. The service questioned his ability to hit with abandon at 205 pounds in the NFL, but loved his confidence and versatility.

“Some believe Karl Joseph is the best defensive back in the entire draft,” PFF’s scouting report read. “That seems over the top, but there is little doubt that he was on track for a fantastic season before getting hurt, and shows very few flaws to his game.”

The Raiders were in the news Thursday long before the Los Angeles Rams made Cal’s Jared Goff the first overall pick. Owner Mark Davis appeared at a meeting of the Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee and pledged $500 million toward building a new stadium in Las Vegas.

McKenzie said that chatter hasn’t affected his scouting department and insisted that Davis has been only a little out of the loop on draft stuff.

“Mark and I talk all the time,” McKenzie said. “That hasn’t changed from every year. He’s put a lot of time into the stadium stuff. He’s been a whole lot busier from that standpoint. But as far as the football team, in free agency and this draft, it’s just like it has been.”

Joseph probably isn’t up to speed on the Raiders’ stadium drama. He’s never even been to the West Coast. He also admitted that he doesn’t know a lot about this franchise’s tradition of hard-hitting safeties, a current that includes guys like Jack Tatum, George Atkinson and Vann McElroy.

“Honestly, not much,” Joseph said. “But I can promise you I’m going to get to know a lot more about it from this day on.”