Silver And Black Pride
In February 2025, following the hiring of now Raiders head coach the Las Vegas Raiders hired Brennan Carroll as their offensive line coach. It was Carroll’s first opportunity to coach an NFL offensive line as his own unit after having previously served as the Seahawks assistant offensive line coach from 2015-2020 where he also spent 2020 as the teams run game coordinator. Following the 2020 season, Carroll left to be the OL coach and OC at the University of Arizona before taking the same role with the Washington Huskies in 2024. While the OL coach at Arizona, their units ranked no higher than 55th and in his one season at Washington they ranked 48th. In Carroll’s one season as run game coordinator with the Seahawks in 2020 they ranked 14th in total rush yards.
After joining the Raiders offensive coaching staff, the team got to work shifting Jackson Powers-Johnson to guard and moving Jordan Meredith to center. Meredith had never logged a snap at center in his college, high school, or professional career. Powers-Johnson meanwhile was the Remington trophy winner and a 1st team All-Rookie selection at center in 2024. Additionally, the Raiders then had a competition between Powers-Johnson and veteran Alex Cappa for the right guard position, a year after Cappa allowed the most sacks, pressures, and hits of all offensive lineman in the NFL. Powers-Johnson would win that competition prior to injuries. The first sign of the Raiders struggles on the offensive line came early in the season when the Raiders struggled to run the ball, had poor run concepts, and consistently left players un blocked or poorly blocked in combo, pull, and help assignments. Carroll, also served as the teams run game coordinator and as most offensive line coaches in the NFL has a huge emphasis on the run game with concepts, coaching, prep, assignments, and much more. The Raiders selected Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty, a finalist for the Heisman award with their 2025 first round selection, and while Jeanty has struggled he also ranks top 5 in the NFL for elusiveness, yards after contact, and missed tackles forced. Additionally, 97% of of Jeanty’s yards this season have come after contact which is 4th in the NFL. Extending beyond the run blocking, the Raiders notably have had injuries on their offensive line with Kolton Miller down since week 4 and Jackson Powers-Johnson getting hurt to miss the remainder of the Raiders season. The Raiders offensive line has struggled in pass protection this season ranking 31st in pass block win rate while they also rank 31st in sacks/game allowed. The most notable though is their NFL worst pressure rate allowed. It’s not a common concept that the Raiders offensive line does have both young and inexperience talent but also talent that can be improved upon, that said the current state of the Raiders offensive line is beyond bad and it likely only gets worse facing 4 teams inside the top 12 for sacks/game coming up on the...
