Mike Washington Jr. 2026 Season Preview — what we know, and what nobody does | Muffed

The fastest running back at the combine weighs two hundred twenty-eight pounds and costs pick one eighty-nine. The catch: the man in front of him just handled the biggest rookie workload in football.

The record: the Raiders traded up to pick one twenty-two for the Arkansas back, per the team site, off a season the club credits at a thousand and seventy rushing yards. The combine is the headline: four-three-three, the fastest back there, at six-two two-twenty-eight, per raiders.com. The scouting director called him a wide-zone fit on the record in April.

[[SITUATION]]

The situation: Ashton Jeanty owns this backfield — verified, two hundred sixty-six carries and fifty-five catches as a rookie — and the team's July position preview frames Washington as the tandem partner with, quote, a great opportunity to earn a substantial amount of carries in training camp. New coaching staff, new offense: Klint Kubiak arrived in February off the Super Bowl win in Seattle, per NFL.com. Nobody trades up to redshirt track speed at two-twenty-eight — and nobody is taking the ball from Jeanty either.

[pause] So the stance writes itself: this is a handcuff price on an unusually interesting athlete, and every projection you'll hear about touches is a guess wearing a spreadsheet. We tested whether combine speed and draft slot predict rookie output — they don't, not at a standard we'd cite. September is the evidence.

Watch: preseason carries behind Jeanty — a clear two-man rotation versus a committee-of-three tells you the plan — and any goal-line package usage at that size. [[CLOSE]] Your whole roster gets this treatment every week — that's the show.