When Las Vegas Raiders general manager John Spytek was asked for his thoughts on Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty, head coach Pete Carroll leaned over and whispered for him to be careful.
It’s clear the Raiders’ new brass wants to keep their thoughts on individual prospects to themselves ahead of the 2025 NFL Draft.
However, it also came off rather clearly that Spytek has no qualms using a first-round pick -- Vegas currently holds the No. 6 overall pick -- next Thursday on a running back, especially a perceived game-changer such as Jeanty.
“I’m gonna be careful about talking about any specific player,” Spytek said during Friday's pre-draft news conference after Carroll’s cautionary murmur. “But, more broadly to the running back question, I mean, we just saw Saquon Barkley just change the Eagles in one year. Now they had a great team around him, and it was adding an elite player. I think when you sit where we sit, the idea is to add elite players at any position. I don’t try to devalue any certain position."
One of Spytek’s underlying messages was that the Raiders are keeping their options open.
Despite trading for Geno Smith and signing him to an extension, the GM is open to taking another signal-caller, as evidenced by some pre-draft visits. Las Vegas has hosted Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders, among others.
“Remain open-minded, and anybody that can help us at that position in particular is going to be up for consideration,” Spytek said when asked how he’s approaching the position. “You guys all have tracked and done your investigative journalism enough to know that we’ve brought some quarterbacks in. That wasn’t by accident by any means. We remain open to the most important position in sports to get right. We are super excited to have Geno here and continue to expect him to be here for a while, but you can’t have too many of those guys.”
As for running backs, there were none taken in the 2024 draft’s first round, but the Atlanta Falcons drafted Bijan Robinson at No. 8 overall in 2023, and the Detroit Lions followed with Jahmyr Gibbs at No. 12.
Both selections came with critiques for using such high draft capital on RBs in the modern NFL. However, Gibbs and Robinson have each been successful so far.
Jeanty is viewed in a similar ilk and many have prognosticated him going to the Raiders at No. 6. He would be the first running back taken in the opening round by the Raiders since Josh Jacobs in 2019 at No. 24 overall.
The Raiders badly need to replace Jacobs, now. He signed with the Green Bay Packers last offseason, leaving the Silver and Black backfield to stumble to dead last in the NFL in rushing yards.
So Jeanty, a tackle-breaking terror who led the nation in rushing the last two seasons, would be not just a potential game-breaking selection, but would fill a massive need. He ran roughshod for an eye-spinning 2,601 yards and 29 touchdowns last year.
At No. 6, the Raiders could make Jeanty the highest running back drafted since the aforementioned Barkley went No. 2 overall to the New York Giants in 2018. The Boise State product could also be the first of multiple RBs to go on Day 1, with North Carolina’s Omarion Hampton seen by most as a first-round pick and Ohio State’s TreVeyon Henderson gaining steam.
“There’s times in games where there’s nobody you’d rather have than the best kicker in the league, too, in that moment,” Spytek said. “There’s certain ways to build a team and I don’t know where we got to a place where we don’t feel like running backs are valued. I come from the University of Michigan, it’s in my core, and those guys were certainly really valued there. It’s hard for me to get away from that.”
Jeanty to the Raiders is gaining buzz. So much so that at the Annual League Meeting, Spytek said his son made no bones that he’d essentially disown his dad if he didn’t draft him.
“My oldest son has made it no secret that if we don’t pick Ashton Jeanty at six, that he’s walking out of the family and he’s gonna find somebody else,” Spytek told Sirius XM NFL Radio. “Probably whoever takes Ashton.
“He walked right into our building and basically told (Raiders owner) Mark Davis, ‘If my dad doesn’t take Ashton Jeanty, he’s doing a bad job.’ ”
Above all the whispers on Friday, the buzz around the Raiders taking Jeanty is getting louder and louder.