The Las Vegas Raiders are one of the first major wild cards in the 2025 NFL Draft, which starts on April 24 in Green Bay. In typical Raiders fashion, there is no real consensus on what they might do with their No. 6 overall pick, but there are several intriguing options for them.
A quarterback, specifically Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders, could be in play as a long-term pick to sit behind veteran Geno Smith for a couple of years.
They have major needs all over their roster.
But the far more likely, and perhaps far more intriguing, option is Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty.
The Raiders have been the favorites to land the top running back prospect, and on Friday general manager John Spytek was asked about the possibility of taking him at the top of the draft, per NFL.com’s Grant Gordon.
Before he could even answer, head coach Pete Carroll told him to “be careful.”
Spytek then talked about the importance of adding elite players and drew a comparison to Saquon Barkley’s impact on the Philadelphia Eagles.
“I’m gonna be careful about talking about any specific player. But, more broadly to the running back question, I mean, we just saw Saquon Barkley just change the Eagles in one year. Now they had a great team around him, and it was adding an elite player. I think when you sit where we sit, the idea is to add elite players at any position. I don’t try to devalue any certain position.”
The Jeanty pick is going to be a complicated one for whatever team ends up taking him in the first round.
He is without a doubt one of the most talented players in the draft, the best at his position and was an absolutely dominant player in college. There are a lot of things to like about him, and he can absolutely change an offense and a team if everything goes according to plan.
The key is it has to be the right team and the right offense.
The Barkley comparison actually offers quite a cautionary tale for a team like the Raiders, and Spytek even unintentionally mentioned it in his answer: The Eagles already “had a great team around him.”
Barkley was also signed as a free agent. The Eagles did not have to use a top-10 pick to add him into their organization.
He was the final piece of their Super Bowl puzzle, not one of the starting pieces.
One of the biggest reasons the running back position became so devalued in recent years wasn’t just because of how short their careers are. It is also because of how dependent their production and impact is on the team and situation around them. They need a great line, a strong passing game and a good system for everything to click.
Barkley had none of that when he played for the New York Giants after they selected him with a No. 2 overall pick. Instead of having him be the final piece of their offense, he was the piece they tried to build around. And while Barkley had some individual success, it was not the same as he experienced in Philadelphia. The team success was nowhere close to the same. It was not because he was different. The situation was different.
It is a similar story with the most recent running back to be picked in the top 10, Atlanta Falcons running back Bijan Robinson. He is great, dynamic and makes a lot of plays. But rest of the Falcons offense is so flawed that it has not yet made a huge impact on their offense or their team success.
Jeanty could be a steal and immediate impact player for somebody in the first round. But it should be a team that already has most of the other core players in place.
Are the Raiders that team? There should be some doubt about that, and the Raiders need to be aware of that.
