Ashton Jeanty’s first season with the Las Vegas Raiders produced the kind of raw numbers that keep a rookie running back in the conversation, and the kind of efficiency that kept the debate going. The No. 6 overall pick in the 2025 draft finished with 266 carries for 975 rushing yards and five touchdowns, added 55 catches for 346 yards and five more scores, and ended the year with more than 1,300 scrimmage yards and double-digit touchdowns.
That production came despite a start that was far quieter than the headline suggested. Jeanty finished with 807 yards after contact, but he averaged fewer than three yards per carry, a figure that reflected the poor offensive line in front of him as much as it did his own inconsistencies early on. Advanced statistics did not look favorably on the rookie season either, even though the box score told a more generous story.
The larger picture is why the year matters now. The 2026 NFL Draft is this week, and the Raiders are expected to use the No. 1 overall pick on Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who won the Heisman Trophy last season and helped Indiana win the national title. That makes Jeanty’s debut the kind of season a front office can point to when it says it took the best player in the class, even if the results were mixed.
Jeanty did improve over the year after that slow start. Over the final seven games of the season, he totaled 117 carries for 421 yards and one touchdown, and he delivered a 128-yard performance against the Houston Texans during that stretch. The late surge did not erase the efficiency concerns, but it did show a player finding his footing as the season wore on.
That leaves the Raiders with a familiar kind of evaluation. They got volume, they got touchdowns and they got a rookie who finished stronger than he began. What they did not get was an easy answer on whether his first season pointed to a future star, or simply a talented back who spent too much of the year running into traffic behind a line that could not consistently hold up.