Ashton Jeanty’s rookie season gave the Raiders a brutal little snapshot of just how rough things were up front in 2025.
The number that jumps off the page is this: Jeanty averaged 1.26 yards before contact per rush behind the Raiders’ line last season, and among 737 running back seasons since 2010, that ranked 734th. That’s the kind of stat that tells the whole story without needing much decoration. Jeanty was getting hit with almost no runway, and he still found ways to produce after contact.
ESPN’s Ben Solak pointed to that reality while making the case that Jeanty is one of the league’s top breakout candidates for 2026. In Solak’s view, a better offensive line under head coach Klint Kubiak should make life a lot easier for the No. 6 pick.
“Predicting a Jeanty breakout is quite the layup,” Solak wrote this week. “He might not immediately achieve the lofty expectations that come with being the No. 6 pick, but we can say with some confidence that his opportunity for production is about to become much easier,” ESPN’s Ben Solak wrote this week.
Solak also noted that Jeanty had 2.4 yards after contact per rush last season, which ranked eighth among all backs. He added that Jeanty was a strong tackle-breaker at Boise State and looks like he can be that kind of player in the pros, too. With a more balanced offense, Solak said, Jeanty should see lighter boxes.
“Jeanty averaged 1.26 yards before contact per rush behind the Raiders’ line last season, and of 737 running back seasons since 2010, that number was 734th. Forget the new scheme or the Tyler Linderbaum signing - pure regression to the mean suggests Jeanty will have an easier go in 2026,” Solak continued.
“Jeanty had 2.4 yards after contact per rush last season, eighth among all backs. He was a great tackle-breaker at Boise State, and he looks like he might be one in the pros, too.
With a more balanced offensive approach, he should see easier boxes as well. A good season is ahead.”
The line issues also fed into a broader conversation about how the Raiders put their 2025 coaching staff together. There’s been plenty of blame to go around after the season, but the coaching alignment itself appears to have been a major part of the problem.
Vinny Bonsignore of the California Post addressed that on Raider Nation Radio’s Morning Tailgate, focusing on the offensive side of the ball.
“You contrast [this year’s staff] to last year… when it’s Pete Carroll and he hires Chip Kelly, who he had never had any working relationship with before. They had coached against each other.
That was the extent of their relationship. And then, from Chip’s perspective, he’s the offensive coordinator.
Yet, the offensive line coach is Brennan Carroll, Pete Carroll’s son, who had no working relationship with Chip Kelly,” Bonsignore said on Raider Nation Radio’s Morning Tailgate.
“I don’t think we’re speaking out of school to suggest that [offensive line coach Brennan Carroll] wasn’t on the same page at all with the offensive coordinator. And we saw the teaching and the coaching and the council that the offensive line coach provided to the offensive line and it just wasn’t working. You could see on the field that whatever he was trying to teach, he just wasn’t teaching it well enough,” Bonsignore continued.
“And I would imagine that some of that had to do with the fact that this [offense] was new to him too. And so trying to force an offensive coordinator and a head coach, and then an offensive line coach on an offensive coordinator, probably is not going to work.”
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