As the Raiders’ 2025 season continues to spiral the drain, it’s not too early to look back at what went wrong to get them here.
No one was expecting the Raiders to make the playoffs this year, but they haven’t met even the lowest expectations, and the organization has only itself to blame.
Let’s take a look at the five WORST moves of the offseason by the Raiders’ three-headed Braintrust of Tom Brady, GM John Spytek and head coach Pete Carroll.
From worse to worst, here we go…
The decision to NOT re-sign Robert Spillane
Along with Maxx Crosby, Spillane was the heart and soul of Patrick Graham’s defense in 2024. The decision makers in the Raiders’ building were aware of that and let the veteran linebacker go to Patriots.
Spillane is having an outstanding year in New England, and the Raiders have, not surprisingly, been underwhelming at the linebacker position.
After losing Spillane, the Raiders ended up taking a double gut punch from the Patriots when Spytek tried to sign veteran linebacker Christian Elliss to a two-year, $13.5 million offer sheet and New England promptly matched the offer.
No doubt about it. The Raiders grossly underestimated the linebacker market in free agency.
The decision to NOT draft a quarterback before round 6
Yes, they drafted North Dakota State quarterback Cam Miller in the sixth round, but Miller wasn’t a top prospect, and most believe he will be a backup quarterback at the NFL level.
Tom Brady hasn’t given Miller any kind of endorsement since the Raiders drafted him, and it was a surprise they didn’t draft Ohio State quarterback Will Howard at some point before he went to the Steelers in the sixth round.
Chip Kelly was Howard’s offensive coordinator on last year’s NCAA national championship team, and most would say he has a higher upside in the NFL than Miller.
One of the biggest bummers of the 2025 season has been watching Geno Smith play poorly with no long-term option on the sideline to get excited about.
The decision to add no starting-caliber offensive linemen
Just as they were last year, the Raiders have been terrible in the offensive trenches.
The only veteran lineman the Raiders added in the offseason was Alex Cappa, and he has been as bad as he was last year in Cincinnati.
Actually, Cappa had a Pro Football Focus grade of 51.2 with the Bengals last year. His 45.0 grade this year is even worse.
Cappa’s signing wasn’t celebrated when it happened, and his signing has turned out to be even more disappointing than expected.
The decision to pass on Sam Darnold in free agency
The Raiders could have signed Darnold as a free agent and paid him less than what they are giving Geno Smith.
It was reported in June that Brady didn’t want Darnold, and that evaluation isn’t looking great on Brady’s executive resume at the present time.
Rather than sign Darnold, the Raiders gave up a third-round pick for the quarterback that leads the league in interceptions and is 50/50 to be back next year.
The decision to hire Chip Kelly, trade for Geno Smith
Is Kelly the problem with the Raiders offense or is it Smith? Which came first… the chicken or the egg?
That’s an impossible question to answer right now.
Since we don’t know, it’s only fair to let Smith and Kelly take the bottom prize together.
Kelly is the NFL’s highest paid offensive coordinator and according to The Athletic’s Mike Silver, the Raiders were bidding against no one when they hired him.
Is $6 million just the necessary rate to convince coordinators with any kind of resume to don the Silver & Black?
Let’s hope not. Let’s just assume the Raiders got bamboozled by Kelly’s agent.
As for Smith, he hasn’t elevated the offense over the first nine games of the season, and if he’s not benched sooner than later, the fans are going to soon stop taking the coaching staff seriously – if they haven’t reach that point already.
Smith and Kelly might not have lost the locker room, but they have lost the majority of the fan base.
x: @raidersbeat
Although the Darnold situation is still the worse, I must say the failure to resign Chaisson is up there too.
Dude had a great year under Leonard, our best coach, and he could’ve been had for peanuts
No surprise Raiders gm has been mediocre his entire career. He did win superbowl with Tim Brady but Brady has won a superbowl with ever team he played for. I’m not sure why you would expect any more from this gm.
I think this is a pretty fair and smart list, but I also think it kind of depends on what expectations were, or should have been. If it was to compete for a wild card spot that’s one thing, and should probably be #1 on the list, because, uh, 4-13 teams generally don’t turnaround that fast unless the bad record was attributable to a good team having massive injury woes at key positions.
Letting Spillane go was a big one, but also versatile guys like Deablo and Moehrig who kept the middle of the Raiders defense from being such a liability. And if the decision was that vthey had to go, the replacements they brought in (Elandon Roberts and the ghost of Devin White) instead of trying to find some younger guys with untapped potential or upside compounded the mistake.
Not drafting a QB aside from Miller, even after trading for Smith is also pretty glaring. Shadeur hasn’t shown anything to suggest he would be an answer yet, but to pass on a guy with that level of Power 5 production so many times has to at least be a failure of process of not results. I know we’re into revisionist history, but he was a legitimate projected top 10 pick until a few weeks before the draft, well after the games had ended and the scouting process should have been mostly wrapped up. With all the extra picks the Raiders had, they should have taken a flyer. It might turn out that he never makes it, but the guys the Raiders took instead on Days 2 and 3 haven’t shown much, or anything at all, yet either, so….? If out was a culture or Deion concern, well, it hasn’t been too much of an issue in Cleveland yet, and why else do you bring in a coach as respected for building culture than Pete? He couldn’t have managed that situation? The Raiders weren’t going to trade up for what it took to get Dart, and I’m not 100% sold on him as a future top 10 QB anyway, even if he’s already better than anyone in the Raiders’ QB room.
I still think the biggest blunder was giving so much control to Brady. Everything goes back to that, from the weird timeline of the Carroll hire of a 4-13 team, to what appears to be a differing vision from the GM (and it remains to be seen if either guy was a good hire), to trading a good pick for Geno over younger free agents like Darnold or even Daniel Jones, to hiring Chip Kelly at a record salary (instead of an up and coming, Shanahan tree guy like Klint Kubiak), to the complete lack of transparency around who is responsible for what…. It’s Mark Davis and Tom Brady. I know this piece is more of a granular take, but it all happens under their watch and responsibility. And I don’t see a single reason to be optimistic things will get better with those 2 running the team, which is truly depressing.