The Raiders spent the no. 6 pick on Ashton Jeanty a year ago, but will he be in a timeshare at running back this year under Klint Kubiak?
Kubiak is known for his two-back systems in other cities, and there has been some talk about the team potentially taking some snaps away from Jeanty going forward.
But based on Kubiak’s most recent comments, Jeanty’s fantasy football owners don’t need to stress… at least not yet.
“I said it before. I think it’s important to have a quality second [running] back, but the best players have got to play and we’ve got to get [Jeanty] on the field as much as we can,” Kubiak said at his Wednesday OTA press conference.
“I don’t know the play snap percentage, but I think Christian McCaffrey, his play snap percentage is high. So those great backs, they don’t want to come off the field.”
If Jeanty can stay on the field in 2026, there’s a good chance he’ll be near the top of the league in rushing yards. He’s a versatile running back that is already among the best in the NFL at breaking tackles.
And while it’s exciting that Kubiak is known for getting the most out of his running backs, he also split carries between Kenneth Walker III and Zach Charbonnet at a significant rate a year ago.
Walker ended the season with 221 carries compared to 184 for Charbonnet.
A split that even might not be in the cards in Las Vegas, but we have learned in recent weeks that the Raiders were determined to walk away from the 2026 draft with one of three running backs.
“They wanted to come out with one of these three,” Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter said on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast last month. “Jadarian Price, the running back out of Notre Dame. They really, really liked him. Had he slipped to the second round, I very much believe they would have absolutely pulled the trigger on him in the second round… The Raiders loved him,”
“There were three [running backs] they had all grouped at a very high level. They wanted to get one of these three. Now, they did have them valued one, two, and three, but one of those three, and they would have been very pleased. The other one was Kaelon Black, the Indiana running back. They really liked him. He [was drafted] in the third round… and so he goes in the third round… They believed there was a chance for Jadarian and a chance for Kaelon Black. They thought that it may work out if Jadarian didn’t slip, Kaelon would.”
“They thought… that Mike Washington would have went a lot higher than where he went,” Carpenter continued. “[The] Raiders picked him at pick 122 [in the] fourth round. I can tell you right now, they had a second round grade on Washington. They loved him. They loved Price. They loved Kaelon Black. They loved Mike Washington and… he is fast. He is a wrecking ball and when you look at the one-two punch of him and Ashton Jeanty… and remember that’s the Klint Kubiak way.”
x: @raidersbeat