The Raiders came into 2025 with a plan: Employ Pete Caroll. Bring in as many of his sons as possible. Print money. The first two steps went off without a hitch, but something happened between then and the third step that sent everything off the rails. Now the team is once again searching for answers at head coach and quarterback.
2025 Las Vegas Raiders Stats (Rank)
Points per game: 14.2 (32nd)
Total yards per game: 245.2 (32nd)
Plays per game: 55.8 (32nd)
Dropbacks per game: 37.6 (21st)
Dropback EPA per play: -0.13 (29th)
Designed rush attempts per game: 21 (31st)
Rush EPA per play: -0.3 (32nd)
Raiders wipe the slate clean
The Caroll reunion tour failed miserably. His gamble on Chip Kelly predictably went bust and he brought Geno Smith down with him, though Geno himself was far from up to the task. As expected, Carroll was ousted after going 3-14. Kelly was long gone at this point and the team eventually traded Smith for pennies on the dollar during the offseason, largely as a contract dump. Starting over from square one, the team brought in Seattle OC Klint Kubiak as their next boss. Kubiak saw what Kevin O’Connell did with Sam Darnold in Minnesota and took it to the next level. Including the postseason, Darnold ranked 15th in EPA per play and 12th in PFF passing grade in 2024. Those marks jumped to ninth and eighth in 2025. Quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko followed Kubiak to Vegas, though the latter will be calling plays.
Following a Super Bowl run that almost looked easy for the Seahawks, Kubiak was one of the hottest names on the market. Neither his hiring nor that of Janocko was a surprise. The Raiders’ choice at defensive coordinator was a bit unexpected. They promoted from within, elevating defensive line coach Rob Leonard to DC. Vegas’s defense was bad in 2025, but not terrible, ranking 20th in EPA per play allowed. Though it’s hard to say how much Leonard brings to the table, he keeps continuity on his side of the ball.
Passing Game
QB: Kirk Cousins, Fernando Mendoza
WR: Tre Tucker, Dont’e Thornton
WR: Jalen Nailor, Malik Benson
WR: Jack Bech, Dareke Young
TE: Brock Bowers, Michael Mayer
The Raiders have preached patience with No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza and signed Kirk Cousins to a deal that amounts to $20 million over one year. Among 40 qualified quarterbacks, Cousins ranked 27th in EPA per play and 33rd in completion percent over expected. There’s nothing in the data to suggest Cousins has juice left in the tank. I looked. The recent history of No. 1 overall picks also suggests that Cousins won’t be long for this world as the Raiders’ starter. The past six quarterbacks to be drafted first overall have started in Week 1. While Mendoza may be the exception to that rule, the Raiders won’t keep him on the bench long.
At 6’4/236, Mendoza looks the part of an NFL quarterback and he has a winning pedigree with a perfect season and a National Championship victory under his belt. He ranked second in PFF passing grade and fifth in both yards per attempt and EPA per dropback in 2025. Though it might not be the most exciting trait, Mendoza’s down-to-down accuracy is world-class. Pro Football Focus charted him with a 69 percent accurate throw rate in 2025. That’s a 91st-percentile mark for all seasons by first-round quarterbacks. Mendoza will likely be tasked with game-manager duties as a rookie, but Kubiak’s scheme could still turn that into QB2 production.
TOUCHDOWN INDIANA
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) December 7, 2025
WHAT A THROW BY FERNANDO MENDOZA 🔥@IndianaFootball pic.twitter.com/7TsAQvWRbv
Tre Tucker will likely reprise his nominal No. 1 receiver role in 2026. The speedy wideout earned a 19 percent target share with 34 percent of the Raiders’ air yards after Jakobi Meyers was traded last year. That represented a notable increase in air yards compared to his split with Meyers, but Tucker didn’t actually earn more targets over the second half of the season. He was also less efficient without Meyers, dropping from 1.5 yards per route run to .9. Some of this decline can be blamed on the Raiders’ sputtering offense, but it’s likely just as true that Tucker simply isn’t cut out to be a team’s top receiver.
Strangely, the only sizable move the Raiders made at wideout this offseason was signing Jalen Nailor to a three-year, $35 million contract. Nailor has similar limitations to Tucker. Since entering the NFL, Nailor sits at 82nd in yards per route run (1.2) and 114th in targets per route run (.12). Playing alongside Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison is a reasonable excuse for poor metrics, but it leaves us without much evidence to support his potential fantasy value in Vegas.
With Tucker and Nailor locked in for starting roles, Jack Bech and Dont’e Thornton will compete for the third receiver spot. Thornton was a boom/bust prospect whose profile was built on small sample efficiency. The Raiders thrust him into a starting role as a rookie and the results were disastrous. Thornton drew a target on 12.4 percent of his routes. Nearly half of his targets were contested and he only managed to bring down 3-of-16 contested looks. Bech, on the other hand, struggled to even see the field. He averaged just over one yard per route run, a poor mark overall, but one that still dwarfed Thornton’s .6 YPRR. Bech operated as an intermediate option and a chain-mover in college. With both Tucker and Nailor capable of winning deep, Bech’s theoretical skill set likely fills out the Raiders’ starting trio better than Thornton’s deep speed.
All of this leads me to the inescapable conclusion that Brock Bowers will set records this year. As a rookie, Bowers looked ready to be the league’s next superstar tight end. His 1,194 yards were the 17th-most for a tight end in league history. He also set the record for receptions by a rookie, regardless of position. Bowers suffered a PCL injury and a bone bruise in his left knee early in the 2025 season and never looked right. He played through the issue for a month before eventually being put on ice for a few weeks. Bowers returned with a 12-127-3 receiving line in Week 9 but cooled off once again before being shut down a few weeks early. Even in an injury-marred down season, Bowers still ranked top-10 in both yards and targets per route run. He also posted one of the five best fantasy games for a tight end since the turn of the millennium. Now Bowers gets a play-caller who just funneled Jaxon Smith-Njigba 36 percent of the Seahawks’ targets. That is the highest target share for a player in the past decade. This isn’t to say Bowers is putting up JSN numbers this year, just that Kubiak knows how to get his best pass-catcher the ball, maybe more so than any other coach in the league.
GENO TO JEANTY FOR THE 60-YARD TD!
— NFL (@NFL) December 21, 2025
LVvsHOU on CBS/Paramount+https://t.co/HkKw7uXnxV pic.twitter.com/k8CknFOEcy
Running Game
RB: Ashton Jeanty, Seth McGowan, Dylan Laube
OL (L-R): Kolton Miller, Spencer Buford, Tyler Linderbaum, Jackson Powers-Johnson, DJ Glaze
Even as one of the most hyped running back prospects of the past decade, Ashton Jeanty was no match for the horrific offensive line and lack of a passing threat that the Raiders surrounded him with. ESPN charted Vegas with the 22nd-best run block win rate. Pro Football Focus had the team dead last in yards before contact created. Jeanty, in turn, averaged a dismal 3.7 yards per carry. For his own part, Jeanty ranked outside the top 20 running backs in yards after contact and outside the top 40 in rush yards over expected per carry. The only reason his season wasn’t even more of a disaster for fantasy managers was his receiving output. The rookie totaled 55 catches for 346 yards and five scores through the air. That ties the modern record for receiving touchdowns by a rookie running back. Christian McCaffrey, Saquon Barkley, and Bijan Robinson are the only first-round rookies to score four or more times through the air in the past quarter-century.
Jeanty should be running behind an improved line in his second season. The Raiders gave Ravens center Tyler Linderbaum a record-setting contract in free agency, giving them an anchor on the interior. They also added Texas A&M tackle Trey Zuhn in the third round of the draft. Between the new faces, an improved passing game, and a better scheme, Jeanty’s efficiency numbers are going to skyrocket this year.
That’s good news, because his volume isn’t going anywhere. The Raiders only have Dylan Laube and Seth McGowan behind him. Laube is purely a pass-catching specialist who operated behind Jeanty on the depth chart last year. McGowan profiles as a two-down backup. He ranked 84th in yards after contact per carry while at Kentucky in 2025. He peaked at 165 carries and will take his first professional snap at nearly 25 years old. Even if Jeanty did miss time, McGowan would cede most of the passing game work to Laube, making him a weak late-round stash.
2026 Las Vegas Raiders Win Total
DraftKings Over/Under: 5.5
Pick: Under (+120)
The Raiders drastically improved during the offseason, namely via the coach and quarterback combo. But they aren’t the only team looking to improve on offense in the AFC West. Every other team in the Raiders’ division replaced its offensive play-caller as well. A team taking a quarterback No. 1 overall hasn’t hit the over on 5.5 since 2018. That’s six straight unders. If I had to pick a side, I would bet on the streak extending to seven.
