Raiders' nightmare season ends with a dream draft pick: First overall

Ashton Jeanty’s eyes lit up bright enough to outshine the diamond-bedazzled beanie covering his head when asked about the Raiders earning the No. 1 overall draft pick minutes after their season had ended.

For the past several weeks, the Raiders picking first in 2026 NFL Draft was a dream of the fan base and maybe the front office. But after the Raiders finished the 2025-2026 campaign with a 3-14 record and secured the positioning as a result of how the NFL’s Week 18 played out, Jeanty’s response showed that the players are excited about the possibilities too.

“That type of pick can change an organization,” the first-round drafted rookie running back said. “Just praying we can make the right pick.”

Hundreds of mock drafts begin flooding in annually in mid-January, and the wave can often feel unnecessary or overblown to those who aren’t into scouting and would rather enjoy the conclusions of both the college football and NFL seasons first.

But not for Raider fans this year.

The 2026 NFL Draft, scheduled to begin April 23 in Pittsburgh, might be the most important one in franchise history. 

It’s only the second time the Silver and Black have ever held the No. 1 overall pick, following 2007 when they infamously chose LSU quarterback JaMarcus Russell, who’s widely considered one of the biggest draft busts in history.

The odds are overwhelmingly skewed in favor of them choosing a quarterback again this time around—either Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza or Oregon’s Dante Moore.

The former won the Heisman Trophy and is considered the safer choice, but perception can change. That’s especially true considering Mendoza and Moore face off January 9 in the College Football Playoff semifinals in Atlanta, with the winner then having the chance to claim the national championship.

Las Vegas could also conceivably trade out of the No. 1 pick for a king’s ransom—Chicago famously got two first-round picks, a second-round pick, a fourth-round pick and a starting receiver in D.J. Moore by going that route in 2023—and wait until next year’s supposedly richer quarterback class to address the most important position. 

But that might not be a popular option considering how long the Raiders have already pushed back committing to a rebuild.

They haven’t chosen a quarterback in the first round since Russell and not even in the second round since 2014 with Derek Carr, who holds virtually all of the franchise’s all-time passing records.

The Raiders have made more win-now moves since moving to Las Vegas in 2020 but only have one postseason appearance (in the 2021-2022 season) and no playoff victories to show for it.

The philosophy seemed to finally start changing late this season. The front office shut down many of the team’s best players, like edge rusher Maxx Crosby and tight end Brock Bowers, instead of having them play through nagging injuries, despite protests from Crosby and now-fired coach Pete Carroll.

That gives Las Vegas a better chance to succeed in the draft with prime positioning, for not only its first pick but many of the other nine it currently holds throughout the seven-round format.

Problem is, the Raiders have a reputation as the worst drafting team in the NFL over the past two decades.

That curse was supposed to be broken in 2024 when then-general manager Tom Telesco assembled a class that made an immediate splash, led by Bowers in the first round, interior lineman Jackson Powers-Johnson in the second and tackle DJ Glaze in the third.

But Glaze had a sophomore slump this year and contributed to the Raiders fielding the league’s worst offensive line, while both Bowers and Powers-Johnson struggled with injuries.

The 2024 class, the first under general manager John Spytek, wasn’t as impactful.

Jeanty set the franchise rookie record with 1,321 scrimmage yards but that was only five more than Josh Jacobs in 2019, and required 30 more touches.

Jeanty finished 47th in the league among qualified running backs with 3.7 yards per carry and won’t be an Offensive Rookie of the Year finalist despite entering the season as a prohibitive favorite to win the award.

Most of his fellow 2024 draftees didn’t even get on the field until late in the season when the Raiders were eliminated from playoff contention.

The optimistic view is that Carroll was unfairly holding them back. There could be some merit to that belief with players like guard Caleb Rogers, tackle Charles Grant, defensive tackle Tonka Hemingway and defensive tackle JJ Pegues showing promise in the final two games.

It can’t take that long with the Raiders’ 2026 class. The future of the franchise depends on picking successfully, now more than ever before.

“All the cornerstone guys we got, the key pieces,” Jeanty said when asked what gives him confidence for the future. “Obviously we’ll bring in some more guys … We can keep building the culture.”

This story appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.