The résumé
Ashton Jeanty · RB
He is 5-foot-8 and the sixth pick of the 2025 draft, which is how you know the building was desperate. Running backs do not go that high unless a franchise has already decided the brochure needs a face. He skipped most of the combine. A week before the draft he mailed general managers a letter that said draft the guy they can’t tackle. The Raiders took him. They signed him to a four-year deal reported at $35.9 million. Then the league tackled him.
Rookie year on a 3–14 club: 266 carries, 975 yards, 3.7 yards per attempt, five rushing touchdowns. That is a lot of handoffs for a man who was supposed to be unsolvable. He later said he was in his head, feeling the pressure, trying to prove something. The tape did not need a confession. By January the word bust was already in the copy. Chip Kelly was gone midseason. Pete Carroll was gone after it. Jeanty was still there, the most expensive reminder that Mountain West highlights are not a scheme.
Year two opened with an ankle sprain three weeks before Miami. Week 2 against the Chargers: 21 carries, 48 yards. Two-point-three a pop, clawing. Four catches, 15 yards. The offense keeps giving him the ball because they spent sixth-overall money and they would like the invoice to look like a plan. The plan is still “hand it to the short man and hope the letter was true.”
The house read
Ashton Jeanty is what you buy when you cannot draft a quarterback yet and you need something that films well in July. They can’t tackle him, he wrote. They could. The pick was the sin. The 3.7 was the receipt.