Mike Washington Camp Update — August 31: Week One Snaps, Pending Jeanty
2026 NFL Season · Monday, Aug 31
Washington made the initial fifty-three, and the team site lists him among four rookies who could see substantial Week One action — his inclusion expressly conditioned on Ashton Jeanty's health. He closed the preseason with eight carries for roughly fifty yards in the finale, and cut day removed Dare Ogunbowale and Roman Hemby from the room.
When Mike Washington's week moves the numbers, you'll know — every episode, in one weekly email.
The full episode, in writing
Mike Washington Jr. came out of cut day with something better than a roster spot. The fourth-round rookie made the Raiders' initial 53, and Levi Edwards at Raiders.com listed him among four rookies who "could see substantial Week 1 action" — with Washington's inclusion marked as pending Ashton Jeanty's health. That is a team-site projection with a condition attached, and it arrived in a week when the club released Dare Ogunbowale and waived Roman Hemby, per Adam Hill at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The backfield that survived is Ashton Jeanty, Dylan Laube, Washington and fullback Connor Heyward, per Edwards.
He earned the exit note. In Thursday's finale against the 49ers, Washington ran eight times for roughly 50 yards — Sam Gordon at the Review-Journal has 51, the team site 49 — and Gordon notes he closed the preseason above seven yards a carry, a preseason aggregate on Gordon's accounting, not ours. That makes it three straight productive August games.
The reason the Week One math bends toward him is the man ahead of him. Jeanty is working back from an ankle sprain — he made the 53 but did not play the finale, and Klint Kubiak said Friday the team is "counting on him" for Week One with "another week to assess," per Hill. FantasyPros' staff touted Washington as an immediate volume-driven number two if Jeanty misses time — an analyst projection, not a team statement, and worth exactly that weight. Nobody has said Washington starts anything, and Jeanty has not been ruled out.
Last week's watch items are fully answered: the cutdown shaped the room, taking Ogunbowale and Hemby out of it, and the finale rotation behind Jeanty turned out not to be behind anyone — Jeanty didn't play, and Washington took the carries. For anyone hearing this fresh, the June read was two-sided and stays two-sided: the Raiders traded up for the fastest back in the class because the athlete is real, and nobody is taking the ball from Jeanty. Last week we called every productive August a backup bet paying its interest, not a job changing hands. The bet is now paying in a different currency — a thinner room, a team-site line about real Week One snaps that is itself conditioned on Jeanty's health, and a starter whose status is being assessed week to week. We'll be back once the backfield takes the field for real.
_Data via nflverse._
Keep going