<\/p>\n
After spending the No. 6 overall pick within the 2025 NFL Draft to pick out Boise State star running back Ashton Jeanty<\/strong>, the Raiders still finished the season with the fewest rushing yards within the league. A few of that may be attributed to offensive line play, and a few of that may be attributed to the utter lack of offense around him. This is a component of the explanation that Las Vegas used one other valued draft pick this 12 months to pick out Arkansas rusher Mike Washington Jr.<\/strong>\u00a0within the fourth round.<\/p>\n <\/a>In line with Ryan McFadden of ESPN, recent head coach Klint Kubiak<\/strong> saw Jeanty\u2019s 266 carries in 2025 \u2014 as compared to Raheem Mostert<\/strong>\u2018s 22, Zamir White<\/strong>\u2018s 12, and Dylan Laube<\/strong>\u2018s seven \u2014 and decided that a two-RB system<\/a> could really profit the offense by lessening the load on Jeanty\u2019s shoulders. Obviously, the addition of No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza<\/strong> is supposed so as to add some balance to the offense, as well, but as Mendoza either learns on the job or watches veteran Kirk Cousins<\/strong> start until he\u2019s ready, that balance will not be immediately available.<\/p>\n Within the meantime, Las Vegas will hope it will possibly depend on Washington to spell Jeanty and supply a change of pace for the offense. Jeanty is a smaller, stouter back, measuring in around 5-foot-8 and 211 kilos. He lacks elite top-end speed but has great burst to get to top speed quickly. Jeanty holds immense strength and, starting so low to the bottom, can out-leverage most would-be tacklers to interrupt through arm tackles and weak attempts. He may be elusive along the road with patient footwork and is a reliable blocker and receiver from the backfield.<\/p>\n Washington is a much bigger back at just over six feet tall and 225 kilos. He also owns that top-end speed that Jeanty lacks, posting a position-best 4.33-second 40-yard dash on the NFL Scouting Mix. While that top-end speed is great within the open field, Washington\u2019s limited burst can hurt his short-field production when attempting to beat defenders across the edge. Despite being larger than Jeanty and possessing an identical strength, Washington\u2019s upright running style takes away from his ability to complete runs with violence and break tackles with power. He’s a powerful pass catcher \u2014 mostly within the screen game \u2014 but his pass blocking will need development at the subsequent level.<\/p>\n When putting the 2 side by side, it\u2019s easy to see how they complement one another and the way effective they is perhaps if they might fuse their best traits into one body, but it is going to be as much as Kubiak to decipher how best to combine the backs in his 2-RB system. It\u2019s a challenge that Kubiak welcomed, though, and Washington is in prime position to satisfy his coach\u2019s desires in adding one other element to the offense that ought to help Jeanty blossom.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After spending the No. 6 overall pick within the 2025 NFL Draft to pick out Boise State star running back Ashton Jeanty, the Raiders still finished the season with the fewest rushing yards within the league. A few of that may be attributed to offensive line play, and a few of that may be attributed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":336530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[338],"tags":[1384,2561,7758,51847,740,11819],"class_list":["post-336529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-fill","tag-mike","tag-raiders","tag-rb2","tag-role","tag-washington"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336529"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":336532,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336529\/revisions\/336532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}