The Raiders added arguably the most interesting player in the 2024 NFL Draft

Editor's note: This story was published on Monday, April 22. On Friday, April 26, the Oakland Raiders drafted Jackson Powers-Johnson with the 44th overall selection.

He won the Rimington Trophy, given to college football's top center, in his only year as a starter at that position at Oregon.

He has a burger named after him and was synonymous enough with pancake blocks that Nutella sent him a personalized gift package.

He autographed a football at the NFL Combine with the name "Turd Ferguson" — yes, a nod to "Celebrity Jeopardy" on 1990s "Saturday Night Live" — only to later find out that his uncle bought the collectible online.

Jackson Powers-Johnson might be the most interesting man in the 2024 NFL Draft, but is he a first-round pick?

This is the conundrum facing elite centers for longer than he's been alive.

"The hay's almost in the barn," Powers-Johnson told FOX Sports last week, in between a busy schedule of Zoom interviews with NFL teams. "It's been a lot of fun, being able to visit all these new cities, meet all these great people and coaches. It's been a really fun process."

Powers-Johnson has taken official visits with seven NFL teams and is expected to be one of the top interior offensive linemen drafted, in a top tier that also includes Duke's Graham Barton and West Virginia's Zach Frazier. The center can be a leader and an anchor on the offensive line, a crucial position, but it isn't valued as highly as other spots on the line. Consider that only one true center has been taken in the first round — the Ravens' Tyler Linderbaum in 2022 — in the past four drafts.

"The teams playing for the big games, they usually have somebody at the point, at center," Oregon offensive line coach A'lique Terry said. "You talk