The ESSENTIAL Football Show 2025 Cap Space: $34.6 million
2026 Cap Space: $128.0 million
2027 Cap Space: $184.1 million
2026 Draft Picks: Own Picks, Round 1-7, plus Comp Picks Rds 4 and 5
There’s a sense that the other shoe has to drop soon, but as it stands, the Raiders have had a sound, quiet offseason.
It’s a marked change from how business is typically done in Mark Davis’s organization, where chaos has been the status quo. This isn’t the space to recount every bizarre incident - I will throw out that Antonio Brown’s extremely brief tenure as a Raider somehow coincided with his cryo-chamber / foot blistering incident, which might have been the strangest headline in the receiver’s embattled career - but it’s worth noting that, at this time last year, ex-head coach Antonio Pierce was talking about how the Raiders had figured out the “Mahomes rules” while they were carrying two backup quarterbacks on their roster.
Las Vegas has taken a markedly different approach this year. Instead of complaining about how Gardner Minshew and Aidan O’Connell aren’t “elevating the team”, an utterly insane expectation for two proven backups, Pete Carroll and John Spytek went out and acquired an actual starting quarterback in Geno Smith.
As importantly, outside of the Smith move, the new head coach and general manager didn’t do much else, which makes a lot of sense for a team in this spot. The Raiders weren’t going to run down the rest of the AFC West by signing a roster out of the available free agent pool. Instead, the Raiders leaned heavily into the NFL Draft, making seven picks in the first four rounds, a group headlined by running back Ashton Jeanty, who will drop into an offense that might be more put together than common wisdom suggests, and filled out the roster with lower-cost veterans in the year-to-year stage of their careers.
The combination should allow the Raiders to be competitive as they build a sorely-needed talent foundation. The exact pieces are a bit different, but when you look at this roster, the overwhelming parallel with Carroll’s Seattle tenure is that this depth chart is set up for competition, an approach that allowed the Seahawks to unearth several late-round gems who became an essential part of their Super Bowl window. It might not mean running down the field in 2025, but if all goes well, there should be some buzz about how the up-and-coming Raiders will spend their $100+ million in cap space during the 2026 offseason.
Quarterback
Starter: Geno Smith
Backups: Aidan O’Connell, Cam Miller (6th)
Running Back
Starters: Ashton Jeanty (Rd 1)
Backups: Raheem Mostert, Zamir White, Sincere McCormick
Wide Receiver
Starters: Jakobi Meyers, Jack Bech (Rd 2), Tre Tucker
Backups: Dont’e Thornton Jr. (Rd 4), Tommy Mellott (Rd 6), Collin Johnson
Tight End
Starters: Brock Bowers, Michael Mayer
Backups: Ian Thomas
Offensive Line
Starters: Kolton Miller, Alex Cappa, Jackson Powers-Johnson, Dylan Parham, DJ Glaze
Backups: Charles Grant (Rd 3), Caleb Rogers (Rd 3), Jordan Meredith, Will Putnam, Alex Cappa, Thayer Munford (Rd 7)
Offense Overview
The 2024 season didn’t yield much in the way of wins for the Raiders, but the last regime did leave behind some potential long-term building blocks.
The headliner is tight end Brock Bowers, who brushed off any concerns about the ankle injury that hampered him during his last season at Georgia as he racked up 1194 yards on 112 receptions while suiting up for all 17 games. Bowers stands out for a lot of reasons, but perhaps his most notable trait is how difficult a tackle he is; it’s something that really sticks out on his flat routes, where he is a perpetual threat to slip a defender and turn a 2-3 yard gain into an 8-12 yard gain. Bowers doesn’t necessarily do anything spectacular, but his subtle control of his angle and burst turns him into something close to a greased hog for defenders to bring down; it just doesn’t happen, and when you talk about a death by a thousand cuts offense, broken tackles in the flat turn leaks into gushes. Despite his prowess in that area, I’m also excited to see Bowers do more damage down the field with Smith throwing him the ball; Bowers is a smooth mover who can get up the seam or break off a sail route, and it wouldn’t surprise if his yards per reception jumps significantly in a more aggressive attack.
The Raiders also appear to have something in center/guard Austin Powers-Johnson and tackle DJ Glaze, their second and third round picks in last year’s draft. Powers-Johnson plays with an obvious attitude and intensity on film - he’s the type of player who can bring the juice to an offensive line room - while Glaze was generally solid in his rookie year. Glaze doesn’t have overwhelming traits, but he is a smooth mover with more than adequate size who showed a solid feel for the spacing and speed of the NFL game. Nothing’s guaranteed, and the Raiders drafted guard Caleb Rogers and tackle Charles Grant in the third round to add to the competition in the room, but it would surprise me if Glaze isn’t the Week 1 starter; he might not profile as a future All-Pro, but he should be a solid presence at one bookend if he continues on his current track.
The long-term outlook for the rest of the line is muddier, with left tackle Kolton Miller looking for a new contract, right guard Dylan Parham entering the final year of his deal, and veteran Alex Cappa, the “default” starter at left guard, joining the team on a two-year deal that by no means precludes a younger player beating him out. However, the group looks like they should be at least average in front of Smith this year, which should allow Jeanty, Bowers, and receiver Jakobi Meyers to do some work with their new quarterback. It’s a trio of skill players who should be enough to build an offense around, and the receiver room also features rookies Jack Bech (2nd Rd), Dont’e Thornton Jr. (4th Rd), and Tommy Mellott (6th Rd), who will have an opportunity to compete for snaps in a room where Tre Tucker is the de facto second receiver.
Defensive Tackle
Starters: Christian Wilkins, Adam Butler
Backups: Jonah Laulu, Leki Fotu, JJ Pegues (6th Rd), Zach Carter, Matthew Butler
Edge
Starters: Maxx Crosby, Malcolm Koonce
Backups: Tyree Wilson, Charles Snowden, Tonka Hemingway (4th Rd), Andre Carter
Linebackers
Starters: Elandon Roberts, Devin White
Backups: Amari Burney, Tommy Eichenberg, Cody Lindenberg (7th Rd)
Safety
Starters: Isaiah Pola-Mao, Jeremy Chinn
Backups: Lonnie Johnson, Thomas Harper
Slot
Starter: Darnay Holmes
Backups: Sam Webb
Outside CB
Starters: Jakorian Bennett, Decamerion Richardson
Backups: Eric Stokes, Darien Porter (3rd Rd)
Defense Overview
The Raiders defense was, for all intents and purposes, put on the back-burner this offseason. Las Vegas drafted cornerback Darien Porter, a height-weight-speed star who fits the Pete Carroll mode well, in the 3rd round, but more of the defensive help came in the form of veterans like linebackers Elandon Roberts and Devin White, or safety Jeremy Chinn, who will hopefully provide competence in the short-term.
There is one looming variable, and that is the health of defensive tackle Christian Wilkins, who is coming off a season-ending foot injury a year after signing with Las Vegas on a lucrative free-agent deal. You could even double down on the injury rebound front, and point to the health of Malcolm Koonce, who had eight sacks in 2023 before missing all of 2024 with a knee injury suffered ahead of the opener, as a similarly impactful variable.
Assuming All-World defensive end Maxx Crosby continues to dominate, a healthy Wilkins and Koonce could make this a formidable group. There are complementary pieces in place - veteran Adam Butler continues to produce as a defensive tackle with some wiggle, Jonah Laulu stuck out to me as a player who will stick as a rotational piece, flashing some ability to disrupt on the interior at 6’5, 290 during his rookie season, and Tyree Wilson will continue to provide size on the edge - but for this unit to be a difference-maker, they need to get Wilkins and Koonce back to form. That pair can be dynamic, which would make life a lot easier for the players on the back end.
As to that group, it will be interesting to see who wins out in what should be an open competition. Elandon Roberts and Devin White are penciled in at linebacker, but if Amari Burney or Tommy Eichenberg take a step forward in Year Two, or seventh-round rookie Cody Lindenberg outplays his draft slot, there’s no long-term commitments preventing the Raiders from rolling with the young guys. The same is true of the secondary; Chinn and his fellow free-agent additions, cornerback Eric Stokes and safety Lonnie Johnson Jr., might wind up starting, or they might wind up getting cut if a young player surprises.
Given the pedigree of the depth pieces on defense, it’s more likely the known names start, but it will be interesting to see how players like Jakorian Bennett, Decamerion Richardson, and Isaiah Pola-Mao transition into the Pete Carroll era. Bennett and Richardson have provided marginal play at best, but they’ve racked up significant reps at outside cornerback in the league without disastrous results, and could certainly take a step forward to become solid contributors. As for Pola-Mao, I’d say he showed up more as a big-play/big-hit hunter than a solid down-to-down safety, but there were certainly positive flashes, and with the right development plan, I could see him sticking as a solid starter.
There’s a lot that needs to come together, and on paper, this group is more likely to be below-average than anything, but NFL defenses are famously volatile, and with the right breaks (and enough juice up front), this group could wind up solid.
Overall Outlook
The Raiders are in the bottom 8 for Super Bowl odds, so I’m not exactly going out on a limb by saying they don’t look like a heavyweight contender.
That said, the Raiders are in a far better spot than last offseason, when there didn’t seem to be any sort of coherent plan in place. As much as I like Christian Wilkins as a player, loading up on expensive defensive line pieces while you roll with two backup quarterbacks didn’t seem to have a lot of alignment in terms of an overall team vision, and putting them dead last in terms of Win Totals seemed like a perfectly reasonable proposition.
Las Vegas might not make the playoffs, but they are a long ways from that spot. Geno Smith isn’t a perfect quarterback, but he’s not afraid to sling it and has the arm to pull it off, which makes for a much more exciting brand of football than Raiders fans have seen of late. Smith has his flaws - he’ll make mistakes when asked to do too much - but if offensive coordinator Chip Kelly can tie the run and the pass games together, the Raiders should be able to limit those situations.
The offense is going to need to lead the way if this team is going to be competitive, but whether or not they make the playoffs, Las Vegas appears to be moving in the right direction, and if they can stack a similar offseason in 2026, we may be having a very different discussion in next year’s season preview.