82.5% of Ashton Jeanty's Yards Came After Contact, and That's the Whole Raiders Problem

Six weeks into the Klint Kubiak era, the Las Vegas Raiders are 3-3. On the surface that's a respectable start. Underneath, it's a team that has lost three straight and whose one clearly identifiable flaw is structural rather than fixable with a tweak.

The flaw is the running game, and it is historically bad. The Raiders are averaging 2.99 yards per carry, last in the NFL and their worst mark through this point of a season. They have 475 rushing yards total across six games and a rushing EPA of minus-41.05 — meaning the ground game isn't merely failing to help, it's actively costing them production.

The Jeanty Number That Explains Everything

Ashton Jeanty has 98 carries for 313 yards, a 3.2-yard average, and one rushing touchdown. Through Week 5, per Pro Football Focus, 240 of his 291 rushing yards — 82.5% — came after contact. That's the damning stat. It means the blocking isn't creating anything; Jeanty is generating his own yards by breaking tackles at the line of scrimmage and getting hit immediately.

The trend line is worse than the season average. His last four rushing outputs: 56, 58, 27, and 22 yards. Against Buffalo in Week 6 he carried 10 times for 22 yards and a score. He's had 10 carries in each of the last two games — not because the Raiders abandoned the run early in a blowout, but because the offense has stopped asking.

There's a health element here, too. Jeanty has been managing ankle and foot issues, and Kubiak had to publicly shoot down a report that Las Vegas was considering sitting him to let the injuries heal. "He's playing," Kubiak said flatly. That's a coach protecting his best back, but it also means the Raiders are running out a compromised player behind a line that isn't winning its assignments.

What It Does to the Rest of the Offense

Kirk Cousins has been genuinely good: 135-of-213 for 1,582 yards, 14 touchdowns, five interceptions, and a 98.0 rating. Brock Bowers has 28 catches for 382 yards and three scores; Tre Tucker has added 24 for 371 and three more. The passing game works.

But it works in a vacuum. Las Vegas throws it roughly 58% of the time, and over the last three games the offense has averaged just 58.3 rushing yards per contest. Against Buffalo, Cousins dropped back 41 times. When a defense knows the run can't hurt it, the second-half playbook shrinks to obvious passing downs against a settled secondary.

The result: a three-game stretch averaging 24.7 points scored and 36.0 allowed, a minus-11.3 margin, and a losing streak that has undone the 3-0 start. Worth noting that the 3-0 start came against Miami (0-5), the Chargers (0-6), and New Orleans (2-4) — a combined 2-15. The schedule got real, and the run game got exposed.

Where This Goes

Offensive coordinator Andrew Janocko believes fixing the run game is about the details. Sometimes that's coachspeak. Sometimes it's the honest answer when the problem is assignment execution rather than talent.

The immediate test is a home date with the Rams, whose defense has held opponents to 23.0 points per game. Los Angeles opened as a 6.5-point favorite and the number has since moved to 4.5, which tells you the market sees a closer game than the original number implied. But the number moving toward Las Vegas doesn't mean the run game is fixed — it means the market has priced in how thin the Rams have been at 2-4.

The Raiders' formula is narrow: efficient Cousins, Bowers working the middle, takeaways on defense, and a ground game that doesn't lose yardage. Three of those four are holding. Until the fourth does, every week becomes a coin flip decided by whether the passing game is perfect. The ranking models have Las Vegas 19th with a rating of minus-4.5 — a meaningful improvement on last year, but one built on efficiency margins rather than dominance, and efficiency margins don't survive a one-dimensional offense for long.

Jeanty playing through pain behind that line isn't a solution. It's a symptom.