So many individual fantasy football trends and narratives are driven by team schemes and complexions. New opportunities are opening and closing every year for different players. We can often discover these trends early on by analyzing a team’s structure and assessing how offseason changes will impact the outlook for the upcoming season. This article will analyze the Las Vegas Raiders and predict what we can expect from their offense in 2025.
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Even with very low expectations, the 2024 Las Vegas Raiders were a massive flop. However, with significant structural changes to the front office, coaching staff, and roster, the team looks to take a major turn in 2025. Will the Raiders capitalize on their chance to return to competitive football, or will they once again watch as their opportunities flow downriver?
The 2024 Season
The Raiders, who won only four games in 2024, are a team that showed flashes of fantasy football potential last season, with rookie Brock Bowers highlighting the offense.
As a team with very few stars besides Bowers on the offensive side of the ball in a very pass-friendly game script, the team was among the league’s top ten offenses in pass play percentage. Unfortunately, the offense was very inconsistent, with various QB, RB, and WR changes due to injuries, trades, and poor play. Because of the offensive changes and the expected coaching firings, there just simply isn’t a lot that we can build off of from 2024. Thankfully, the Raiders made some massive improvements in the offseason that fans and fantasy owners alike can have plenty to be excited about.
Offseason Recap
Las Vegas kicked off what would be a very eventful offseason by announcing John Spytek as the organization’s new general manager. Spytek previously served as assistant general manager with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Despite being new to his seat at the table, Spytek and his staff were ready to push their chips in early.
Only a day after bringing in their new front office leader, the Raiders hired Pete Carroll as head coach. By joining the Raiders, Carroll reclaims his title as the oldest active head coach after being removed from the same role by the Seattle Seahawks in 2014. While Carroll is a defensive-minded coach at heart, his offenses contributed in a massive way to his success as a head coach. Of course, many may look back fondly on Marshawn Lynch, Percy Harvin, Doug Baldwin, and Jermaine Kearse, highlighting Carroll’s Seattle offenses with Russell Wilson under center, but how did the Seahawks distribute the ball when Pete Carroll was coaching?
The simple answer is that the team was all over the place, as indicated by the graph above. One obvious explanation for the Seahawks’ highly volatile year-to-year offensive play-calling under Carroll is the lack of consistency in the role of offensive coordinator.
Chip Kelly will join the Raiders, serving as offensive coordinator under Pete Carroll. Kelly has held nearly every possible coaching position on both the professional and collegiate levels. As a former RB coach, offensive line coach, QB coach, offensive coordinator, and head coach for various NFL and college teams, Kelly has a loaded resume, which has given him incomparable experience. Kelly’s experience in various roles with different teams has forced him out of his comfort zone and allowed him to learn to utilize many different offensive systems. In an interview, Kelly recently stated, “I think the coaches that are the best are the ones who can match [their system] to the personnel that they have.” Thanks to a plethora of recent offseason additions to the offense, Chip Kelly will have plenty of personnel with which he can match his various systems.
In his first major move as general manager, John Spytek sent a 2025 third-round draft pick to the Seahawks in exchange for Geno Smith. Though Smith operated at an above-average level last season, he will be a significant improvement from the team’s prior QBs. Among qualifying QBs, Geno Smith ranked 17th in EPA/play, 16th in success rate, and 4th in completion percentage over expected. For reference, Gardner Minshew (the team’s previous starter) ranked 31st, 21st, and 22nd, respectively, in these categories last season. While Smith’s new weapons in Las Vegas first looked to be in the same rough condition as the previous season, the team quickly invested further into the offense during April’s draft.
Highly touted Boise State RB phenom, Ashton Jeanty, was selected to join the Raiders with the sixth overall pick in this year’s draft, making him the earliest drafted player at the position since the Giants drafted Saquon Barkley second in 2018. In 2024, Jeanty carried the ball 374 times for 2,601 yards and 27 TDs.
The Raiders still were not satisfied with their offense; they made this clear when they used their next pick on TCU WR Jack Bech. Bech’s draft stock exploded in the 2024 season as he amassed 62 receptions for 1,034 yards and 9 TDs.
2025 Outlook
For the first time in many years, the Las Vegas Raiders offense provides plenty to be excited about. If Chip Kelly stays true to matching his system to his personnel, we can expect a massive shift toward the ground game. Rookie Ashton Jeanty provides a unique and stable skill set that the Raiders will likely lean on just as Chip Kelly did with Quinshon Judkins and Treyveon Henderson at Ohio State. At the same time, adding a reliable, veteran gunslinger under center in Geno Smith will open up the passing attack in ways simply not possible under the team’s prior QBs. While it is expected that Brock Bowers will once again lead the team in targets, the upgrade at QB and the offense as a whole will greatly increase the value of whoever leads the WR room. This role has previously been held by Jakobi Meyers, but the aforementioned addition of Jack Bech will certainly have a chance to make an early impact. All in all, this offense is poised to have its best season since moving to Las Vegas in 2017.
In Vegas, the house always wins; however, investing early in this Raiders offense will be a key step toward helping you win in 2025.
from Fantasy Footballers Podcast https://ift.tt/XhEqtxo
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