Mike Mayock’s perfect draft prospect may come as surprise

Mike Mayock loves jokers and bubble butts.

Eat your heart out, Mel Kiper. This is the real NFL draft research people crave.

Mayock, the general manager of the Raiders, has spoken glowingly in the past about, um, enhanced derrières when evaluating draft-eligible players for NFL Network.

“Look at that bubble butt,” Mayock told his broadcast partner about one prospect. “That’s a power generator. Thighs, quads and the bubble butt. Offensive linemen love that.”

So he either has a vision about what makes the best physique for those protecting the quarterback or is a fan of every character from SpongeBob SquarePants.

Mayock and coach Jon Gruden also have an affinity for those who can play a joker position, which requires a player to have enough versatility to cause matchup issues for opposing sides.

Kenyon Drake is this year’s joker. His free-agent signing needs to produce because the Raiders paid him too much. I mean plenty.

I assume Drake will outperform last season’s joker, given Lynn Bowden Jr. was drafted in the third round and then traded to Miami before ever playing a regular season game for the Raiders.

The key, then, is discovering a joker with a bubble butt. If that happens during this week’s draft, I’m guessing Mayock and Gruden simultaneously will drop their mics and leave the room.

So this becomes our mission: To find those second- and third-day sleepers who might fit such a significant role.

Pressley Harvin III, Georgia Tech

He might be the player Mayock and Gruden would consider mere perfection.

Sure, he’s a punter, and the Raiders have a more-than-competent one in third-year player AJ Cole.

Stay with us. Harvin goes 6 foot, 263 pounds (he weighed 283 last season), so there’s a good chance that power generator Mayock speaks about is well established.

But it’s also true that Harvin might have a bigger arm than he does leg.

He won the 2020 Ray Guy Award as college football’s top punter but also threw a 43-yard pass to teammate Nathan Cottrell to help beat Miami in 2019. NFL scouts were as interested in how far Harvin might toss an attempt via a fake punt as in how many times he could place kicks inside the 20-yard line.

Harvin also plays piano and four different versions of saxophone.

Jokers wild, man.

Quinn Meinerz, Wisconsin-Whitewater

The Raiders have enough players from Clemson. Make that from Power Five schools.

Roll the proverbial dice on a small-school offensive lineman who stands 6 feet, 3 inches and 320 pounds.

You want joker-type skills? This Division III All-American used to practice shotgun snaps by hiking balls to a pizza peel situated atop a garbage can. Seems he hit the shovellike tool more times than not.

Mayock and Gruden should check out this guy’s wildness workouts on YouTube — where he’s pushing down trees and carrying logs up hills and curling large water containers — and they will be sold.

Oh, yeah. He also plays center. Which might be a good choice for a team that this offseason traded away the league’s best one.

Ben Mason, Michigan

On paper, 6-3 and 254 pounds doesn’t exactly scream power generator. But this fullback also lined up at H-back and tight end and defensive line while also playing special teams during his career. He’s close enough on both requirements being judged here.

I realize Gruden has a fullback he covets in veteran Alec Ingold, but Mason is a multipurpose weapon. Scouts watch him and think of five-time Pro Bowl selection Kyle Juszczyk. Nice company if you can earn it.

Gruden would love this guy. Old-school mentality. His nickname is Bench Mason because of how he tears things up in the weight room. Sports a mean Mohawk. Streaks his face with eye black. Eats steak draped in spinach and onions with his hands.

If he’s not a joker, I don’t know who is.

There you have it, then. Three sleeper options who define the sort of player — and lower half — Mayock and Gruden seem to prefer.

My work is done here.

Ed Graney is a Sigma Delta Chi Award winner for sports column writing and can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on Twitter.