Las Vegas Raiders

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.

Welcome to the dark side, rookies. The Raiders walked into the 2026 draft with the number one overall pick and walked out with 10 new names — a two-sided reset. Quarterback at one, then a weekend spent rebuilding the secondary and adding athletes everywhere else. Five defensive backs. A wide-zone running back. A freaky tackle in round three. And a quarterback who threw 41 touchdowns in the Big Ten. Brandon Hunt called the theme character and competition — but the data says this class was about fixing two things: the quarterback spot and a pass defense that bled big plays.

The Raiders' 2025 passing offense generated minus 108 expected points added with 20 passing touchdowns and 22 turnovers. Enter Fernando Mendoza at one. The Indiana quarterback went 273-of-379 for 3,535 yards and 41 touchdowns against just 6 interceptions, plus 276 yards and 7 scores on the ground. Those 41 passing touchdowns led the entire country. His predicted points added — the college version of NFL expected points added — landed at plus 0.47 per play and plus 198.48 on the year. Read that 2025 number again: Mendoza alone threw twice as many touchdowns in college as the entire Raiders passing attack. In round six they handed him a vertical weapon in Oregon's Malik Benson — 43 catches, 719 yards, 6 scores, 16.7 yards a pop, and a per-play predicted points added of plus 0.78. Hunt's pitch: a 4.37 runner who wins on crossers, overs, and back-shoulders. A field-stretcher for the new arm.

The Raiders' 2025 pass defense surrendered 23 passing touchdowns and a positive 43 expected points added — offenses were profiting every time they dropped back. So the Raiders spent five picks on it. Arizona corner Treydan Stukes leads the haul at 38, with a Relative Athletic Score of 9.76 at free safety — Kent Lee Platte's 0-to-10 composite versus every safety tested since 1987, putting Stukes in the top 3 percent ever measured. At 67, Auburn edge Keyron Crawford — 9.5 tackles for loss, 5 sacks — a player Hunt says has only played football five years, with no bad habits to unlearn. Then the swing that may define this weekend: Tennessee corner Jermod McCoy at 101. A 9.81 Relative Athletic Score at corner, top 2 percent at the position, a player Hunt called arguably the best corner in the draft, who fell on a knee question 32 teams chewed on overnight. The Raiders traded up to get him. They moved up again in round five for Arizona safety Dalton Johnson — 97 tackles, 7 pass breakups, plus special-teams value. California corner Hezekiah Masses closed it out at 175 with 12 pass breakups, 8th-most in the country, on a more modest 3.39 Relative Athletic Score. Four of the five played multiple spots in college. That's the answer to a unit that allowed 214 yards a game.

The offensive line got one pick. It might be the bargain of the weekend. The 2025 Raiders allowed 64 sacks — sixty-four — and at 91, Texas A&M tackle Trey Zuhn III fell into their lap with a Relative Athletic Score of 9.99 at guard. That's the top of the chart. The 99th percentile of offensive linemen tested since 1987. Hunt said Zuhn plays every position and just blocks everybody, and the Raiders saw him live against Miami's first-round rushers. A direct response, at a discount.

The 2025 ground game put up 5 rushing touchdowns and minus 94 expected points added — a unit screaming for explosive juice. At 122, the Raiders found it in Arkansas's Mike Washington Jr.: 6-foot-1, 225 pounds, 4.43 speed, over a thousand rushing yards in his final college season, and a Relative Athletic Score of 9.90 — top 1 percent of backs ever measured. Hunt explicitly tagged him as a wide-zone fit. Late on day three at 229, they added NC State defensive tackle Brandon Cleveland — a multi-year starter Hunt described as a heavy-handed run defender with initial quickness — to anchor the interior.

Pick of the draft is Jermod McCoy at 101. Not the stat line — the value. You can argue Mendoza, because franchise quarterbacks always win this discussion. You can argue Zuhn, because a 9.99 athlete on a line that allowed 64 sacks is logical. But McCoy shifts the math of the entire class. The Raiders traded up to land him. Their own front office said he was a top-10 player on their board. They got him at 101. Corner is a position where premium athletic profiles do not get replaced cheaply, and the medical is one their staff has conviction on. If McCoy plays to his pre-injury grade, this is a top-15 player in round four. That's the pick that turns a solid class into a haul.

The biggest 2026 question is whether the secondary actually congeals. The Raiders bet hard on versatility — Stukes, Johnson, McCoy, and Masses can all flex between nickel, deep safety, and outside corner, and Robbie Leonard's defense is built for that. But four new defensive backs is a lot of new voices in one room, and a pass defense that allowed a 47 percent third-down conversion rate doesn't fix itself just by adding athletes. The Mendoza era starts now. The line got a 9.99 athlete to protect him. The secondary got a face-lift. Ten new dudes. The Raiders smashed the board — now they have to coach it up.