What can get lost in Ashton Jeanty’s rookie season is that he was a productive pass-catcher out of the backfield, hauling in 55 catches for 346 yards and five touchdowns last year. All three of those figures were in the top 10 among running backs during the 2025 regular season, highlighted by his receiving touchdowns, which were tied for the third-most at the position.
Still, during the early stages of the Las Vegas Raiders’ training camp, Jeanty is looking to become a more dynamic weapon in the offense
by improving in the passing game.
“The more that [running backs] can do, the better it’s going to be,” running backs coach Omar Young said. “He goes out there every single day in special teams period and he’s working all the routes and trying to get better. I know he talked about that as being one of his goals in the offseason, to go attack that process of being a better route runner, and you’ve seen that show up here.
“Like he already has some stuff and that dude has really good hands and good stickums. And so, when you talk about the patience and understanding defenses now and how to set things up, I think that’s really cool to see it come to the field and how it plays all out.”
For clarity, players who don’t participate on special teams typically get extra individual drills when the rest of the team is working on the kicking game during practice. Jeanty only took two snaps on special teams last year and likely isn’t going to be used in that phase of the game since he’s expected to have a big workload in the Raiders’ offense moving forward.
The Boise State product being a productive receiver in year one wasn’t too much of a surprise. While he only had 23 catches for 138 receiving yards and one touchdown during his historic 2024 College Football season, the former Bronco caught 43 passes for 569 yards and five scores the year before.
However, a lot of those touches came as an extension of the running game (i.e., screens and swing passes), and it was a similar story in Las Vegas last year. According to Pro Football Focus, over 70 percent of Jeanty’s catches came behind the line of scrimmage, and he had a negative 1.6 average depth of target as a rookie. Becoming a more dynamic route-runner should be a point of emphasis and help open up the playbook for him.
Another area of improvement for the 2025 No. 6 overall pick is becoming a better pass protector. PFF had him on the hook for 12 pressures (three sacks) on 85 opportunities last season, which was tied for the third-most pressures among running backs and resulted in an ugly 34.1 grade. The Raiders coaching staff, specifically Young, is chalking that up to a technique issue.
“When you go back and watch this tape, it wasn’t like it was bad,” the coach explained. “He’s going to go in there, and he’s going to throw everything he’s got at it. The thing that we’ve been working on with him is his technique. And his technique has gotten way better and improved since last year, and it’s awesome to see that. I mean, he’s attacking that every single day and trying to bring that into his game so he can be an every-down back and be on the field at all times.”
Off the field in Las Vegas, the team also could use a vocal leader in the running back room. Barring a free-agent signing during camp, Dylan Laube has the most years in the NFL under his belt with just three. So, despite only entering his second season, Young has tasked Jeanty with taking on the veteran role in the backfield.
“That was one of my first challenges to him when I first got here,” Young replied when asked how Jeanty has grown as a leader. “…And he’s been doing a great job of that every single day of just trying to be a leader but trying to be himself with him being a leader and not trying to do things that are not him so it’s not inauthentic. He wants to be his authentic self and he’s doing a really good job of that. He’s leading us the right way and he’s got our group going in the right direction. I really like and love how he’s attacking that part of it.”
Of course, Jeanty is still working on improving his vision and toting the rock as well. That is the primary responsibility of his position after all. But expanding his game, in both the offense and the locker room, has clearly been a point of emphasis so far in training camp.
