Ashton Jeanty
Jeanty is the Raiders' entrenched every-week workhorse in a run-first Klint Kubiak offense, but I could not surface current in-season coverage of the knee designation, so treat the volume as the known and the health as the unknown.
Role
Feature back on a team that wants to run: as a rookie in 2025 he played essentially every game (17 starts), took 266 carries for 975 yards and five scores, and caught 55 balls for 346 yards and five TDs, so he is a true three-down, pass-game-included back rather than a two-down grinder. The only depth-chart competition surfaced in what I found is rookie Mike Washington Jr., who impressed in camp and was alternating some first-team reps and took over the first-team work when Jeanty went down — he is the change-of-pace/insurance body, not a threat to the lead role. Kubiak, in his first year as head coach, has publicly built the offense around a heavy run rate, which is the whole bull thesis for the touch floor.
Volume plus scheme. A top-six draft pick who already absorbed 320+ touches as a rookie, on a team whose head coach explicitly wants to be run-heavy, with a genuine receiving role attached — that combination produces a weekly touch floor almost nobody else has, and Year 2 behind an offense built for him should convert those touches more efficiently than his 3.7-ish yards per carry rookie line.
The rookie efficiency was poor, and it was not a fluke of one bad game — the Raiders' offensive line and the fact that opponents can key on the run with a middling passing attack mean a lot of carries into stacked fronts. Bulk touches on a low-scoring offense cap the ceiling, and the goal-line/red-zone scoring was modest for a back with that workload. Add a knee designation and you are paying for volume that could shrink or disappear.
Where analysts split
The concrete argument is whether Year 2 in a purpose-built Kubiak run scheme actually fixes his efficiency, or whether the line and the offense's overall lack of passing threat keep him a high-volume, low-yards-per-touch back. Secondarily, whether Mike Washington Jr. eats into the workload if Jeanty is limited. I did not find enough current in-season reporting to characterize how the community is currently split on the knee itself.
Research confidence: thin. Outlooks are grounded in web search over current reporting and refreshed through the season.
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