Silver And Black Pride
Boise State product has chance to improve league’s worst rushing attack from last season
It’s no secret that the Las Vegas Raiders’ rushing attack and offense as a whole were terrible last year. The Raiders ranked 29th in points scored, and finishing dead last in rushing yards and yards per carry as a team were big factors. Hence why Las Vegas used the No. 6 overall pick of last April’s NFL draft on Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty.
Despite recent analytics suggesting that the draft slot is typically too high for a running back, the Silver and Black’s selection of Jeanty has been applauded by many in the media, including some of the biggest number crunchers in the industry.
For example, FTN’s Football Almanac 2025 dives into how much of an upgrade the Heisman Trophy runner-up will be compared to what Las Vegas had in the backfield last season.
“The Raiders had one of the worst collections of running backs in the league last year,” FTN’s Alex Blickle wrote, “so not only is sixth overall pick Ashton Jeanty potentially one of the few backs in the league who can make a significant impact, but he’s also replacing well-below-average players.”
Blickle goes on to cite two statistics where the team’s rushers were especially egregious: DVOA and breaking tackles.
For a refresher, the creator of DVOA, Aaron Schatz, offers a high-level explanation of the metric as “a team’s efficiency by comparing success on every single play to a league average based on situation and opponent,” and a more thorough description can be found via this link.
How bad were the Raiders in this area last year? Well, Blickle noted, “Las Vegas was at the bottom of the league with just 3.0 yards per carry and -70.6% DVOA when running on second-and-long.”
Diving deeper into the numbers provided by the Almanac, Alexander Mattison led the team in carries with 132, but averaged 3.2 ypc and recorded -24.4% DVOA. Ameer Abdullah was next with 66 touches, 4.7 ypc and -2.6% DVOA, and Zamir White had 65 rushes, 2.8 ypc and -62.0% DVOA.
Sincere McCormick was the most efficient running back with 39 rushes, 4.7 ypc and 18.0% DVOA. The problem was that McCormick didn’t get a carry until Week 12 and then suffered a season-ending injury just three games later.
The only other players from last year’s team to record a positive DVOA when running the ball were wide receivers Tre Tucker (nine, 4.9 and 59.5%) and D.J. Turner (five, 6.6 and 96.6%).
Tucker returns this season and is expected to have a bigger role on the team, but primarily in the passing game. Meanwhile, Turner is still unsigned after the Raiders chose not to extend a tender to him as a restricted free agent this offseason.
Unfortunately, DVOA is only available for the NFL and doesn’t extend to College Football, so there’s no way to compare Jeanty’s production for that metric. But he did manage to average an impressive 7.0 ypc,...
