The new NFL season lies just around the corner, meaning the fantasy football news cycle cranks up and hype trains begin to leave the station.
The Las Vegas Raiders won two of their first four games to open last season, but they didn’t do much more winning over the remainder of the campaign as they finished just 4-13 overall and fired head coach Antonio Pierce. Having now lured a veteran and arguable coaching legend to helm the franchise as well as added a bridge quarterback and a franchise-altering halfback, what does the upcoming year look like in the City of Sin?
Will Ashton Jeanty live up to the generational label? Can Brock Bowers repeat his record-breaking rookie year? Find all the answers below!
How will a new head coach impact the Raiders?
After decades of mediocrity and just two NFL Playoffs appearances since losing the Super Bowl in 2002, the Raiders are synonymous with unexciting football. Seriously, the franchise’s all-time leading passer is Derek Carr and they rarely finish among even the league’s top half in scoring output. If there’s anything they do well, the silver-and-black branding does remain one of the best and most iconic colorways in all of sports.
The team hired Pete Carroll — yes, that Pete Carroll — to take over as the franchise’s head coach over the offseason. He faces a tall task, but if anyone can turn the culture and outlook around here, the longtime coaching veteran may just be the guy to do it. He boasts 18 years of NFL coaching experience and many more with USC in the NCAA, so there’s no question of whether the 73-year-old feels prepared for this gig.
After all, look at Carroll’s resume. His professional teams finished .500 or better in 14 of his 18 years as a head coach, and he turned the Seattle Seahawks into a perennial playoff contender over his 14 years in the Pacific Northwest. Carroll took the reins of that franchise in 2010, then rattled off nine straight winning seasons from 2012 to 2020, including eight campaigns with double-digit wins. While 2021 was a down year for Seattle, Carroll again led his squad to a winning record in 2022 and 2023 before he and the franchise parted ways. By the time he departed, he’d accumulated a 227-137 record with the franchise (a .606 winning percentage), two NFC titles and one Super Bowl ring.
Carroll’s Seahawks did two things consistently well during their heyday — play defense and run the damn ball. His teams ranked no lower than third in rush attempts six times during his tenure, and even when they shifted to a less run-heavy approach later on, Seattle still finished with an efficient ground game at seventh or better in yards per attempt in three of his last four seasons at the helm. Overall, the Seahawks’ offense ranked top-10 in scoring eight times under Carroll, though his teams’ yardage totals often remained closer to the middle of the pack.
All this is to say the Raiders should likely prioritize the ground game for as long as this new staff stays in place. If Carroll’s presence doesn’t say enough, perhaps the hiring of Chip Kelly as offensive coordinator speaks for itself. The former Philadelphia Eagles coach helmed two top-five offenses in 2013 and 2024, and his teams never finished lower than 11th in rush attempts. While he says he’s adapted some to the modern NFL’s pass-happy tendencies, old habits die hard. If you put two historically run-heavy coaches together, it only makes sense to assume they’re going to ground-and-pound opposing defenses into submission while controlling the clock.
After drafting a generational running back with a premium selection, the strategy appears clear. However, the Raiders also traded for former Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith, who played under Carroll and steps in as the best talent this team has seen under center in several years. With a competent signal-caller directing the offense, there’s some upside here as Brock Bowers and Jakobi Meyers complement the ground game. They likely won’t finish among the NFL’s elite units, but a top-half outcome lies within the realm of possibility.
Fantasy star fallout
Quarterback
Geno Smith
As Geno Smith said in a 2022 postgame interview, the NFL wrote him off but he didn’t write back. After a couple of standout seasons which the veteran didn’t get enough credit for, the league and its fans once again wrote him off. Well, one man’s loss is another’s gain — the Raiders took advantage by trading for the two-time Pro Bowler to take over as the starting quarterback in Las Vegas, then gave him an extension before he even took a single snap in silver and black.
Why the bold move? Smith performed among the league’s top arm talents over the last three seasons with two campaigns of 4,200 yards or more, a completion percentage of 69.8% or higher and 20+ touchdowns. While interceptions have provided a fatal flaw, the 34-year-old has a couple of very efficient years in the books and can sling the rock with some of the NFL’s best. He ranks seventh among quarterbacks over this three-year sample with an 85.7 PFF grade as well. In that same time span, Smith averaged 17.9, 15.2 and 15.6 FPPG to finish as the overall QB5, QB19 and QB13. His per-game averages aren’t stunning, especially since he’s not a scrambler, but Smith can fit into lineups in a pinch to toss a couple of touchdowns and 250+ yards.
We can debate whether tight end Brock Bowers and wide receiver Jakobi Meyers are collectively as talented as DK Metcalf and Jaxon Smith-Njigba were in Seattle, but Smith should provide a steady presence under center the Raiders sorely lacked over the last couple of seasons. He’s clearly a good quarterback and earned every penny of his two-year, $75 million contract extension. Expect Smith to settle in nicely in Las Vegas and average somewhat similar fantasy production as he did over the last couple of seasons as he reunites with Carroll, though his numbers may drop some due to lower passing volume here than in Seattle.
Running backs
Ashton Jeanty
Generational. Unstoppable. Unbelievable. A smattering of words can describe Ashton Jeanty, but no phrase quite does the halfback justice. It’s tough to explain just how talented the running back truly is, and sometimes it’s easier to just roll the tape and let the few who are yet unaware open their eyes at their own pace. However, we’ll look at some statistics for hard evidence.
Jeanty led the Mountain West Conference with 1,347 rushing yards as a sophomore in 2023, then somehow took his game up several notches and put up a monster 2024. The halfback carried the ball an unbelievable 374 times but still averaged 7 yards per carry as he rumbled for an NCAA-best 2,601 yards and 29 touchdowns on the ground. Jeanty finished second in Heisman Trophy voting, earned an All-American nod and nearly shattered Barry Sanders’ all-time single-season rushing record. It didn’t matter how he got the ball, the halfback became a threat for a house call on any given play. He’d bounce off three tackle attempts in the backfield and at the line of scrimmage, split through the trenches, then make safeties miss in the open field with his agility before breaking free for a track-race score.
Few talents ever shined as brightly in college football as Jeanty. Now, he faces a new challenge as he takes on professional competition instead of a fairly-easy schedule in the Mountain West. However, that doesn’t mean he’ll look any less formidable against NFL defenders. The 21-year-old is well-built at 5-foot-8, 208 pounds and has proven he can handle an immense workload without slowing down much. He steps into this offense as a clear-cut bell-cow back with the fantasy floor likely set around the RB16 mark. Jeanty can easily finish within the top eight at the position, especially if he sees some opportunities in the receiving game as was usually common in Carroll and Kelly’s schemes.
Wide receivers
Jakobi Meyers
It’s only fitting that Smith’s top wideout falls into a similar situation as a perennially-overlooked talent who consistently produces in fantasy football lineups. Now, if you need Jakobi Meyers to get you 20 fantasy points, he’ll get you 12. However, if you need Jakobi Meyers to get you 10 fantasy points, he’ll also get you 12. Is the ceiling high? Not usually, but we love him anyways.
The former New England Patriot enters 2025 coming off a career-best season in which he eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark for the first time with 87 catches for 1,027 yards and four scores. Meyers increased his fantasy production in every season of his career and just averaged 14.5 FPPG, good for the overall WR19 and per-game WR23 slots. He reached double-digit points in all but five of his 15 contests but displayed a smidge higher of a ceiling than usual with six games over the 15-point mark.
With the best quarterback of his career and relatively little target competition aside from Bowers and a rookie Jack Bech, Meyers should soak up opportunities once more. As mentioned earlier, pass volume may not impress many fantasy managers here in Las Vegas but the consolidation of those targets to just a couple of weapons should ensure that multiple players can produce fantasy-relevant campaigns. Meyers won’t suddenly become a WR1, but he can probably repeat last year’s career-best campaign thanks to the upgraded quarterback and offensive outlook.
Tight end
Brock Bowers
Few players burst onto the scene in the same impressive fashion as Brock Bowers, the Raiders’ young stud at tight end. Usually, players at the position take a year or two to really settle in and adapt to the professional game. The Georgia product needed no such adjustment period and demolished the competition from the get-go, though.
Sam LaPorta broke the rookie tight end receptions record with 86 catches in 2023 and immediately earned the mantle of one of the NFL’s best young talents at the position. His record only stood for a year as Bowers hauled in 112 passes on 153 targets for 1,194 yards and five touchdowns. Wherever the 6-foot-4 standout lined up, it seemed the ball found its way into his waiting hands. His versatility helped establish him as Las Vegas’ top option in the passing game, and he graded out with the third-best receiving grade among all tight ends while pacing the position in routes run, targets, receptions and yardage.
Bowers’ 15.5 FPPG ranked him as the TE3 on a per-game basis and he finished as the overall TE1, becoming the second rookie to do so in as many years. As improbable as it feels, he’s positioned for improvement — PFF’s profile on the sophomore mentions that he led the NFL in uncatchable targets last season, and Geno Smith should provide very steady play under center that Bowers just didn’t have in Gardner Minshew and Aidan O’Connell. With that improvement and the relative lack of competition, the sky is the limit for the young star. He’s a locked in top-five tight end once more.
