The Las Vegas Raiders’ 2025 offseason was full of a series of calculated, strategic moves aimed at ending years of disappointment. With a new regime in place and major changes across key positions, Las Vegas is now positioned for one of the league’s most dramatic turnarounds this fall.
It’s easy to look at the changes in Las Vegas and feel optimistic. New head coach Pete Carroll is a proven winner and new GM John Spytek did great things in Tampa Bay. Even the quintessential winner, Tom Brady, is now involved with the Raiders. Factor in an offseason full of moves and a great draft and you can practically feel the wins roll in.
But you can take opinions, takes, and gut predictions and put them to the side. In fact, you can look at the entire Raiders offseason and eliminate all but two moves. As the data points out, simply by addressing the QB and HB position the way the Raiders did should lead to a huge turnaround in 2025.
Based on data from Pro Football Focus (PFF), the Raiders were absolutely terrible at rushing and passing last season. Raiders fans probably didn’t need advanced analytics to confirm that, but the Raiders were among the very worst in both categories in 2024. With the additions of QB Geno Smith and RB Ashton Jeanty, the Raiders are expected to make massive leaps in both of those categories. In fact, conservative projections now have the Raiders at 80+ grades for those two attributes for the 2025 season.
Why does this matter? NFL history is clear: Teams scoring 80 or higher in both rushing and passing grades rarely miss the postseason, and most reach double-digit wins.In fact, over the past 3 seasons, teams with 80+ grades in rushing and passing win almost 2/3 of their games. That would equate to 11-12 wins for the Raiders if the projections are accurate. For context, the Raiders won less than 40% of their games over the past 3 seasons.
Now is it really that simple? On its face you can’t only upgrade QB and HB at the sacrifice of every other position and be successful. But when you factor in the Raiders pre-existing talent (Crosby, Koonce, Wilkins, JPJ, Kolton Miller, Brock Bowers, etc) , add in the new leadership and then have massive upgrades at QB and HB… well then you start winning.
Conservative projections peg the Raiders as a 7 or 8-win team, but again the numbers make a strong case for a 10 to 12-win ceiling. While that is undeniably rosy and optimistic, it certainly is far from unusual for losing teams to make rapid turnarounds. Look no further than the Raiders’ own AFC West rival, the Denver Broncos, last year.
With an upgraded quarterback, a revived run game, and deep across-the-board improvements, the 2025 Raiders are positioned for a big step forward. History shows that when a bottom-tier team fixes both its rushing and passing attacks while shoring up weak spots on defense, leaps of 5+ wins are very possible and even probable.
This fall, don’t be surprised if the Raiders are not only in the playoff race but contending for the AFC West division title. As crazy as that may sound now, just remember that the data supports this. And while that’s no guarantee of success, it’s a whole lot better from where the Raiders have been in the past.
Disclaimer: The content of this article was originally published as a YouTube video on the Saturday Morning Inspection YouTube channel. With AI assistance, the publisher of the video created this article based on the content of that video.
