Raiders 2025 Season in Review

Sixty-four sacks allowed. That's the worst in football, an eleven-percent sack rate on every dropback. Here's how an offensive line that couldn't keep Geno Smith upright torched the whole season, why a first-round rookie running back averaged under four yards a carry, and the one unit that actually held up its end. Three and fourteen. Last in the AFC West. The Raiders missed the playoffs entirely, finishing seventh among AFC non-playoff teams, and outside of a Week 1 win in New England, a Week 6 home win over the Titans, and a Week 18 win over a Chiefs team playing for nothing, this was a season-long muffing.

The team by the numbers is brutal — and consistent. Total offensive expected points added on the season — how much every snap helped or hurt their chances of scoring — was minus 202.9. Dead last, third percentile. The defense was middle-of-the-pack at plus 25.6 expected points added allowed (and remember, on defense you want that negative), twenty-first in the league. Offensive disaster, mediocre defense. Steady floor, no ceiling — Las Vegas was shut out twice, scored ten or fewer in six games, and cleared twenty-four points only twice all year. The third-down rate tells the same story: 34.7 percent, twenty-eighth. They couldn't stay on the field.

Now let's talk about the passing offense, where the season really got muffed. Geno Smith threw for 3,025 yards and 19 touchdowns — but also 17 interceptions, and he ate 55 of the team's 64 sacks. His adjusted net yards per attempt was 4.4, thirty-fourth among qualified starters in a thirty-two-team league. Passing expected points added landed at minus 107.6, ninth percentile. The wild part? Smith's completion percentage over expected was actually a tick above average. He completed the throws. Everything around them — the picks, and that league-worst 10.7 percent sack rate — drowned the unit. Tre Tucker led the team with 57 catches for 696 yards and 5 touchdowns — a fine season for a number-one receiver, a disastrous one for a team's leading target.

Now let's dig into the rushing offense, because somehow it was worse. The Raiders averaged 3.6 yards per carry — dead last, third percentile. Rushing expected points added on the season was minus 96.8, also dead last, minus 0.26 per carry. Historically bad. Seventy-seven and a half rushing yards per game. And this was the year Las Vegas drafted Ashton Jeanty in the first round to fix the run game. Jeanty finished with 975 rushing yards on 266 carries, 3.7 a pop, 5 rushing touchdowns and 5 more through the air on 55 catches. His rushing yards over expected: minus 50.8 — meaning against the blocking and box counts he faced, he underperformed what an average back would have produced. The blocking was a disaster all year, so that's not entirely on him. But his headline play — a 64-yard touchdown run through the left side in the Week 4 loss to the Bears — was the exception that proved the rule. Outside a handful of explosives, this run game never threatened anyone.

Next up, the pass defense — honestly the unit that kept this from being a one-or-two-win team. Las Vegas allowed 214 passing yards a game and 23 passing touchdowns, with 37 sacks — forty-seventh percentile, middle of the pack. Passing expected points added allowed was plus 43.2 (negative is what you want), so below average but not catastrophic. The takeaway number is where the story lives: only 16 on the year, eight interceptions and eight fumble recoveries, thirty-fourth percentile. When they did get one, it mattered. The best came in Week 9 against Jacksonville — Trevor Lawrence, second and goal from the two, and Isaiah Pola-Mao picked him off in the end zone for a touchback. That play swung roughly seven expected points. The Raiders still lost 30 to 29, which tells you everything about the margin this team lived on.

And the run defense was actually the best thing this team did all year. Rushing expected points added allowed was minus 17.7, sixty-ninth percentile — negative is good on defense. Solidly above-average run-stopping. They held opponents to 4.1 yards a carry and made teams earn every yard. Not a splash unit — 22 rushing touchdowns allowed is a lot — but on a per-carry basis, a real strength, and it trended steady all year. In a season where almost nothing worked, the front held up against the run. That's something to build on.