The Raiders released wide receiver Cody White on Wednesday, but his absence from the team was a short one.
They announced that they have re-signed White on Thursday. Tight end Carter Runyon was waived in a corresponding move. Runyon was activated from injured reserve in the corresponding move to White’s Wednesday release.
White has eight catches for 112 yards and three touchdowns in eight appearances this season. He had 11 catches for 169 yards and a touchdown in 30 games for the Steelers and Seahawks earlier in his career.
Runyon had one catch for three yards in 13 games last season, but has spent all of this season on injured reserve.
Raiders Clips
Christian McCaffrey returned to practice Thursday as a limited participant.
The 49ers running back has not practiced on a Wednesday since Week 1, but the difference this week was a hamstring injury kept him out of practice. The previous six Wednesdays he missed were for load management.
McCaffrey was diagnosed with a mild hamstring strain after the Week 7 loss to the Falcons. The 49ers are coming off their bye week.
The 49ers downgraded wide receiver Christian Kirk (knee) to a non-participant after he got in limited work Wednesday.
The rest of the report remained the same.
Wide receiver Mike Evans (ribs/Achilles), wide receiver Deebo Samuel (hamstring) and safety Siran Neal (knee/foot) remained out of practice a second consecutive day.
Defensive end Nick Bosa (calf), linebacker Luke Gifford (groin), cornerback Nate Hobbs (adductor), wide receiver Demarcus Robinson (ankle), safety Marques Sigle (ankle), cornerback Upton Stout (shoulder) and linebacker Garret Wallow (hamstring) were limited.
It’s fitting that the owner of the team headquartered in the nation’s gambling capital doesn’t like gambling on sports.
“I’m not a fan per se of gambling on sports, especially the one-on-ones, the proposition types of betting,” Raiders owner Mark Davis told Mike Ozanian of CNBC. “I think the key thing is the integrity of the game.”
Indeed it is. The integrity of the game — and the perception of integrity.
“People have to believe in the game,” Davis said. “Is it worth the risk? I don’t know. I can’t answer that.”
I can. It’s not worth it.
Back when the NFL hated gambling (before it realized how much money it could make by jumping in bed with the sports books), Commissioner Roger Goodell said this: ‘If gambling is permitted freely on sporting events, normal incidents of the game such as bad snaps, dropped passes, turnovers, penalties, and play calling inevitably will fuel speculation, distrust, and accusations of point-shaving or game-fixing.”
Now that sports gambling and prediction markets premised on sports outcomes have proliferated, there’s a constant undercurrent of suspicion that the fix is in. The NFL can pretend all it wants that it’s not happening, but it is. As long as it’s not impacting the bottom line, the NFL will continue to look the other way.
One big scandal could change that, permanently.
For now, Davis is pragmatic, and candid, about the ensuing tension.
“The revenue that is coming from gambling and those types of entities is large so there has to be a balance between integrity and . . . the good things that it can bring to the league,” Davis said.
The only “good things” are money. Directly from the deals with sports books and the ability of owners to hold up to five percent of the equity in companies that operate sports books. And indirectly from the enhanced ratings that come from viewers who have action on a given game or the players in that game.
The indirect benefits were always there, even when gambling was illegal in all states except the state where Davis’s team plays. They would still be there if the NFL were to resume its hard line against gambling in all forms.
But it’s too late for that. The money is baked into the budgets. And the NFL isn’t about to give up a viable revenue stream with which it has become fully accustomed.
Bill Belichick fell short of the necessary votes to be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2026, but he may have another chance in 2027.
The Hall of Fame announced the five coaches who have advanced to the next round of consideration in the current selection process. One of those coaches will be selected for consideration by the full selection committee ahead of the Super Bowl.
Belichick is joined by Tom Coughlin, Mike Holmgren, Dan Reeves, and Mike Shanahan. All five coaches also advanced to this point in the selection process last year. This is the fourth time that Holmgren has advanced to this point.
Don Coryell was the last coach selected for the Hall of Fame. He was part of the Class of 2023.
It is set to be another week without wide receiver Mike Evans for the 49ers.
Evans did not play in Week 7 due to Achilles tendinitis and he remained out for the team’s first post-bye practice on Wednesday. General Manager John Lynch stopped short of ruling him out for Week 9’s game against the Raiders during a Thursday appearance on KNBR, but said that it is “probably unlikely” that the wideout is back in action on Sunday.
Lynch referenced Christian McCaffrey’s past issues with a similar injury and said the 49ers “don’t want it to become something that really lingers” for Evans because the goal is for him to be as impactful as he was in the early part of the season.
Deebo Samuel has been out since Week 5 with a hamstring injury and he was also out of Wednesday’s practice.
The 49ers could get a couple of wideouts back this week, however. Demarcus Robinson has been designated for return from injured reserve and KhaDarel Hodge, who played in the first three games of the season, returned to the practice squad after being released in early October.
49ers running back Christian McCaffrey missed part of the Week 7 loss to the Falcons with what had been called a thigh injury during the game. By Monday, it had been revised to a hamstring injury.
Nine days later, McCaffrey wasn’t able to practice because of it.
In the first official injury report issued by the 49ers since they said he had a thigh injury during the Week 7 loss, the 49ers say that McCaffrey missed practice due to a hamstring injury.
After the game in Atlanta, McCaffrey said it felt like his leg “just died on me.” On Wednesday, McCaffrey expressed optimism that he’ll play on Sunday against the Raiders.
“I had no idea [it was a hamstring injury],” McCaffrey said Wednesday, via Vic Tafur of The Athletic. “Sometimes the adrenaline and all these other things can get to you. . . . It wasn’t too bad. Having the bye week was awesome. But now I feel great.”
Still, not great enough to practice. Which creates the kind of mixed signals that conjure memories of the strange way in which the team handled McCaffrey’s 2024 Achilles injury, which resulted in his unexpected scratch for the regular-season opener.
Here’s the basic reality. He had a career-high 413 touches in 2025. He has 118 in seven games this year. Now 30, the workload can take a toll — especially in a 17-game season.
49ers defensive end Nick Bosa returned to practice Wednesday after missing the team’s past five games with a calf injury. Bosa was a limited participant.
“It’s a long year, and I kind of just reminded myself that I need to be ready for the long haul,” Bosa said, via Harrison Rich of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Bosa tore his right ACL in a Sept. 21, 2025, game against the Cardinals and underwent surgery five days later. As he was coming back this summer, Bosa experienced soreness and tendinitis in his right knee, and the 49ers backed him down until Sept. 2 when he returned to practice.
He injured his left calf while warming up in practice for Week 3.
“I must have had some type of compensation going on, especially in that first week back,” Bosa said. “I was kind of trying to push it back with the [right knee] tendinitis, so I may have been favoring [the left calf] a little bit. I was just doing my normal warm-up drills one day, and I tweaked it. Calves are a pretty long process. I’ve never had one, so it took a little longer than I expected, but I don’t even think about it anymore.”
Wide receiver Mike Evans (ribs/Achilles) remained out of practice, and running back Christian McCaffrey (hamstring) also didn’t practice.
Wide receiver Deebo Samuel (hamstring), safety Siran Neal (knee/foot) and offensive tackle Trent Williams (rest) were the other players who sat out Wednesday’s session.
Linebacker Luke Gifford (groin), cornerback Nate Hobbs (adductor), wide receiver Christian Kirk (knee), wide receiver Demarcus Robinson (ankle), safety Marques Sigle (ankle), cornerback Upton Stout (shoulder) and linebacker Garret Wallow (hamstring) were limited.
The Raiders have traded Maxx Crosby once, but the Ravens reneged on the deal.
A report this week indicated that the Raiders have “no plans” to trade the edge rusher again, and he doesn’t want them to.
“I love being a Raider. I’ve said that a million times,” Crosby said Wednesday, via video from Raider Nation Radio. “This is where I want to be. Super excited, obviously for the present, but also for what’s to come.”
The Ravens sent two first-round picks to the Raiders for Crosby. The Ravens, though, failed him on his physical and sent him back to Las Vegas, because of long-term concerns about Crosby’s surgically repaired left knee.
Crosby, 29, likely could still bring two first-round picks to the Raiders. He has 22 tackles, three sacks, a forced fumble, a pass defensed and 18 quarterback hits this season.
Crosby has played 88 percent of the team’s defensive snaps.
He expressed optimism at where the Raiders are headed short term and long term.
“I’m not thinking too far down the road. I’m being present,” Crosby said. “We’re 4-4. We’ve got a really good football team. I love this locker room. I love the guys. We have great leadership. Klint [Kubiak] is a really good coach. We have Robby [Leonard], who is a first time being a DC. He’s doing a hell of a job. We’ve got a lot of new faces, new pieces, a lot of young guys as well.
“I love where we’re going. We’ve got a lot of work to do. We know that. That’s the beauty in it. Everyone can say whatever they want. We had this conversation last week [after a 35-21 loss to the Rams], and it was like the world is ending, and now it’s all these positive vibes. For us, it’s about focus about this week, today, getting better. That’s the mindset of this whole team. I’m excited about everything.”
There were no kickoff returns for touchdowns in the first seven weeks of the 2026 season, but that streak came to an end in the second quarter of the Week 8 game between the Raiders and Jets at MetLife Stadium.
After the Jets scored a touchdown to take a 13-7 lead, Raiders running back Dylan Laube fielded the ensuing kickoff and took it all the way to the end zone. Laube’s 95-yard return gave the Raiders a lead that they’d fumble before recovering in the second half to earn a 38-33 win.
Laube added 49 yards on two other returns later in the game and he was named the AFC special teams player of the week on Wednesday.
Laube is the league leader with an average of 34.1 yards per kickoff return heading into Week 9. He’ll try to hold onto that lead while facing the 49ers this Sunday.
The Raiders have gotten good play out of quarterback Kirk Cousins through the first eight games of the season, with the team sitting at 4-4 after Sunday’s victory over the Jets.
With Cousins keeping the team in contention, it’s unclear when No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza might make his first career start.
That’s just fine with team owner Mark Davis, who talked about the young QB in a Monday interview with CNBC.
“From me, there’s absolutely no pressure whatsoever,” Davis said, via Adam Hill of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
“Today, there’s a lot of pressure put on teams when they draft a guy No. 1 that you have to play him right away,” Davis added. “That’s why I think we were so fortunate to get Kirk Cousins as someone who could bridge the gap and let this young man learn a lot about what football is in the pros, the speed of the game, and the things that have to be done. … And he’s picking it up great, but I think we’re fortunate he doesn’t have to go out and play.”
Davis doesn’t want Mendoza to feel like he has to feel any kind of pressure to perform, because that could end up hindering his growth.
“I’ve seen quarterbacks get fast-tracked onto the field and they may do well, but they don’t learn all the intricacies of footwork and everything else it takes,” Davis said. “So they’re limited in their development, maybe throughout their career.
“I’m really happy with the way it is with Fernando right now, and we’ll see what happens.”
Much of Davis’ happiness with Mendoza has to do with how the QB has handled everything off the field.
“I tell people jokingly that if he can play football, he’s going to be amazing,” Davis said. “Because he’s got every other intangible you could want in a person. He’s a hard worker. He’s a sponge.
“[And] he’s working with Mr. [Tom] Brady on a lot of things.”
Mendoza has made one appearance so far this season, completing 6-of-8 passes for 48 yards in mop-up duty during the Week 5 loss to the Patriots.
