The Raiders have a lot of questions along their offensive line going into the 2026 season, but unlike other years, this time around it seems like they have some intriguing personnel options.
In the last 14 months, the Raiders have drafted three third-round offensive linemen, and one of last year’s picks might be a perfect match for what head coach Klint Kubiak wants to do in the running game.
Former William & Mary offensive tackle Charles Grant was rumored to be on the 49ers’ radar going into the third round of last year’s draft, and according to league analyst, Grant might be a better fit with Kubiak than he was with former head coach Pete Carroll – or more specifically, the offensive scheme Carroll was running a year ago.
League analyst and host Brett Kollman was on the Just Win podcast this week and said Grant may have fallen into a perfect situation with Kubiak as his head coach.
“You watch Grant in college, especially in wide zone. Grant in college was arguably one of the two best offensive tackles in his draft class as far as blocking in wide zone. He is so quick,” Kollman said on the Just Win podcast,
“So I see the scheme fit there and I just kind of chalk [the 2025 season] up to coaching, quite honestly, because I don’t think that these guys suddenly became untalented.”
As we’ve learned, the offensive coaching staff in Las Vegas last year was one of the worst fits in the league and for the rookies like Grant (and plenty of others), the impact of a dysfunctional coaching staff can’t be overstated.
On the same podcast episode, former Raiders’ O-lineman Marshall Newhouse talked about that dynamic and said he believes Grant and the rest of the offensive line will be in a better situation to succeed with the new coaching staff.
“As soon as the season was over, I [said] I don’t think they’re going to clean house. I understand they didn’t perform well, but you cannot discredit the amount of dysfunction on the coaching level,” Newhouse said.
“That affects players. That affects guys who just don’t know what to expect on a day-to-day basis, especially developing young players like JPJ and Glaze and these young guys, Caleb and Grant. That matters. Then you saw immediately [John] Spytek and Kubiak come in like, ‘No, we see something in this room.'”
Pete Carroll believes the offensive talent wasn’t in the building a year ago
He hasn’t talked a lot since being fired by the Raiders, but Pete Carroll said in March that the team didn’t do enough to upgrade the offensive line in 2025.
Carroll told ESPN’s Rich Cimini that the coaching staff, including himself, were to blame for Geno Smith’s failures, but seemed to be particularly disappointed in the offensive line he was handed.
“We got killed, we got killed,” Carroll said of the Raiders offensive line in 2025. “Our offensive guys up front, from the last couple of years, we got murdered. We needed to upgrade that more than we did. It didn’t happen in the draft, and it didn’t happen in the offseason.”
“We didn’t go for it in the offseason,” Carroll continued. “We needed to buy a new line to give the guys a chance to at least be more competitive. The only reason you get sacked that much is because you try to throw it too much. The whole thing didn’t quite work out and what’s why you saw a change and all that.”
Others would say Carroll’s son was in a little over his head coaching at the NFL level
Former Raider great Lincoln Kennedy talked about Carroll’s decision to hire and not fire his son at the mid-point of the season.
“He’s the coach’s son. I mean, look, I’m not one who wants to mix business with family. Okay. Trust me… I don’t do that. But at the same point, at this position, something’s got to happen,” Kennedy said on the Locked on Raiders Squad Show podcast in November.
“I’m not that fire guy. I’ve never been that… because, look, I don’t want to get into coaching because I don’t want to live with my bags packed, but also because of reasons like this. The fact that the players are out there not doing well, sometimes they’re in the wrong position. That does have something to do with coaching. At the same point, it also has to do with execution.”
Not long after it was announced that Carroll was fired, The Athletic’s Ted Nguyen said the decision to hire Carroll’s son was one of the 74-year-old head coaches biggest mistakes in Las Vegas.
Nguyen added that the younger Carroll was not known to be a “detail-oriented guy” during his tenure with the team, which would make sense considering the offensive line wasn’t a detail oriented offensive line at many points in the season.
x: @raidersbeat
If Pete wasn’t playing nepotism king and actually hired a competent o-line coach, and wasn’t jaw locked ignoring the new players chances are last season could have been different. By all means, Pete, blame somebody else.