The Raiders put out a few smoke screens in the days leading up to the 2025 draft, but according to NFL insider Tony Pauline, there was one guy they were targeting in the first round from the start.
Every team says they got the players they wanted in the draft, but in this year’s case, it sounds like the Raiders got who they really wanted with the sixth-overall pick in Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty.
As for the aforementioned smokescreens leading up to the draft, Todd McShay was the draft insider who took the bait on the notion Jeanty wasn’t going to end up in Las Vegas.
“The Raiders coveting Ashton Jeanty was the worst-kept secret in the draft, but as the first round drew closer, the bigger question was if the Boise State running back would be available at No. 6,” Pauline reported on Wednesday. “After the Jaguars traded up for Travis Hunter and the Browns took Mason Graham, Jeanty fell to the Raiders, and they took little time in running the card to the table.”
”Jacksonville is not drafting Mason Graham and I’m told the Raiders are not taking Ashton Jeanty at six,” McShay said on The McShay Show just before the draft.
“After talking with some people in the league over the weekend, I no longer expect Jeanty to be the pick at 6,” McShay added in his Monday mail bag the next day. “Don’t be surprised if the Raiders start a run on edge rushers at 6, with Jalon Walker and Mykel Williams the most obvious fits. Many teams have Walker higher on their board, but my gut tells me Pete Carroll could bet on traits and take Williams here.”
Two weeks after the draft, McShay credited Raiders GM John Spytek with dumping the bad intel ahead of the draft.
“I want to give a lot of credit, first of all for the espionage, for getting out the late leak that it was going to be Banks [with the no. 6 pick]. John Spytek, I see you,” McShay said on The McShay Show in May.
We might never know what Spytek would have done with the no. 6 pick if Jeanty wasn’t there, but according to Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter, Geogia linebacker Jalon Walker might have been the pick.
“Had Jeanty not been there… and Mason Graham and Will Campbell, I think the [Spytek] would have pulled the trigger on Jalon Walker,” Carpenter said on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast. “I know the Raiders loved him. Had they traded back, let’s say they had gone to nine or 12, I would not have been stunned if Omarion Hampton was a Raider.”
“They loved him,” Carpenter continued on Hampton. “They liked Jeanty more, but it was negligible, very close. They loved Omarion Hampton.”
As it turned out, Hampton was the no. 22 pick in the draft to the Los Angeles Chargers, so Spytek and company wouldn’t have come anywhere near getting Hampton with their second-round pick. If the decision makers in Las Vegas wanted one of their top two running backs, it had to happen in the first round, and nearly everyone covering the draft had Jeanty rated above Hampton as a prospect.
ESPN’s Ben Solak wrote an article this week explaining why he believes it will be Hampton, not Jeanty, who wins the Offensive Rookie of the Year award this year.
“Omarion Hampton will win Offensive Rookie of the Year,” Solak said. “I think he will quickly out-touch Najee Harris, and I think the Chargers want to go back to a more run-heavy approach after turning pass-heavy out of necessity late last season. He’ll outproduce fellow first-rounder Ashton Jeanty, too. I see a 1,200-rushing-yard season incoming.”
x: @raidersbeat