Welcome to the AFC West version of Optimus Fantasy’s Team Previews! Today, we’re looking at the Las Vegas Raiders. In order to best know where we’re going, we often need to study where we’ve been. With that in mind, I will cover what the team looked like in 2024, fantasy significant changes to philosophy and personnel, and what I expect from the team in 2025. Your fantasy drafts are coming. Stay ready, so you don’t have to get ready.

The Las Vegas Raiders in 2024

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Team Stats
PROE	-0.98
4th Down Go For It!	19.38
Target GINI	0.6371 +
Rushing GINI	0.6713
Plays/Game: Offense	62.6

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Let’s start off by defining a few things, shall we?

Note: Any stat highlighted green with a “+” means it’s significantly, at least 1 standard deviation, above average. Any stat highlighted red with a “-“ means it’s significantly below average. If the stat is highlighted in blue, it is within the standard deviation for that stat.

PROE – Pass Rate Over Expectation

2nd and 1 for the offense? Sure, it makes sense to run. 3rd and 12? Yup, absolutely reasonable to pass. PROE measures how often a team passed the ball when we would “expect” them to run. Such as on 2nd and 1. Obviously, this is our expectation, and part of the strategy is to do the unexpected. So it’s not a perfect encapsulation. However, over 17 games, this gives us a general idea of how an offensive coaching staff envisions their offensive strengths.

4th Down – Go For It!

It’s kinda just what it sounds like. Unlike PROE, there’s no “expectation” to this stat. Of all 4th downs, this is how often a team chose to go for it. Higher rates mean an offense has more chances to accumulate fantasy points. Conversely, it’s not as great for kickers. 

Target GINI

This is where my background in economics comes out. Without going too far down the rabbit hole, Target GINI is how concentrated a passing attack is among pass-catching targets. A Target GINI of 1 means every target went to one player. Perfectly evenly distributed targets among players result in a Target GINI of 0. 

Rushing GINI

The same as Target GINI, but for rushing. So a Rushing GINI of 1 means one player had 100% of the rushing attempts. A Rushing GINI of 0 means every player received an equal number of rushing attempts.

“Ok, I get what GINI is, but how is it helpful for us?” You know, you’re really great with these questions. Are you sure you’re not a fantasy football expert? At any rate, these metrics tell us how concentrated or siloed a team’s passing and rushing attacks are. For fantasy, we’re looking for them both to be as close to 1 as possible.

Plays/Game: Offense

Literally just what it sounds like, this is an average of how many plays per game a team’s offense runs. The idea is that more offensive plays equal more opportunities for our players to score fantasy points. Simple enough, right?

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Top Performers (HPPR 2024)
Gardner Minshew	QB34
Alexander Mattison	RB33
Ameer Abdullah	RB40
Jakobi Meyers	WR24
Tre Tucker	WR60
DJ Turner	WR117
Brock Bowers	TE1
Daniel Carlson	K11

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Significant Offseason Changes from ’24 to ’25

Lost: Everyone except Meyers, Tucker, Bowers, and Carlson

Added: Ashton Jeanty, Dont’e Thornton, Geno Smith, Raheem Mostert, Jack Bech

From a fantasy perspective, I love the Raiders’ draft. A first-round RB, and two WRs who fit the need for an X WR? Awesome stuff. 

The Raiders return four starters on what was a rough offensive line from ’24. Continuity, two 3rd round NFL draft selections on the OL, and the additions of Ashton Jeanty and Geno Smith should help make up for some deficiencies in the play of the line. 

GM, head coach, and offensive coordinator, the Raiders changed them all in the offseason. We know Pete Carroll and Chip Kelly both historically employ rushing-based offenses. I’ll have a lot more to say during the team overview, but suffice it to say that we can throw out everything we know from last year.

Looking Ahead to the Las Vegas Raiders in 2025

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Lou’s Confidence Level 1 – 5
Geno Smith	3
Ashton Jeanty (R), Sincere McCormick	4
Jakobi Meyers, Dont’e Thornton (R), Jack Bech (R)	3
Brock Bowers	5
Daniel Carlson	3

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Lou’s 2025 HPPR Rankings
Geno Smith	QB19
Ashton Jeanty (R)	RB5
Sincere McCormick	RB74
Jakobi Meyers	WR35
Dont’e Thornton (R)	WR90
Jack Bech (R)	WR100
Brock Bowers	TE2
Daniel Carlson	–

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Week	Opponent	Expected W/L
1	@ New England	W
2	Los Angeles Chargers	W
3	@ Washington	L
4	Chicago	L
5	@ Indianapolis	L
6	Tennessee	L
7	@ Kansas City	L
8	BYE	–
9	Jacksonville	W
10	@ Denver	L
11	Dallas	L
12	Cleveland	W
13	@ Los Angeles Chargers	L
14	Denver	W
15	@ Philadelphia	L
16	@ Houston	W
17	New York Giants	W

Lou’s projected 2025 “fantasy season” record: 7-9

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OK, Now For the Important (Non-Kicker) Raiders

“Lou, you didn’t rank Daniel Carlson!” Very astute, and you are correct. I’m a big believer in saying, “I don’t know,” when someone asks me about things I’m ignorant about. I’m kicker-dumb. So if you’re here looking for insight on kickers, I’m very sorry. Uhh, the Raiders’ offense should be better, so Carlson should get more opportunities, but fewer FGs, and will finish about the same. Is that good enough? Sheesh, so demanding!

Alright, we need to cover the structural and schematic changes we will see for Las Vegas this year. Like I touched upon in the Offseason Changes section above, both HC and OC have had an emphasis on the ground game throughout their coaching careers. Chip Kelly also famously has run an incredibly fast offense, often snapping the ball with 20+ seconds left on the play clock. This has resulted in his teams running a lot more plays throughout games. If you play fantasy football and are not licking your chops at this point, we are not the same.

The proverbial fly in the ointment is that in 2024, Kelly’s last as an OC at the collegiate level before returning to the NFL this year, he ran an incredibly slow offense. We could throw that out as an aberration, except it coincided with the most team success he’s had as a professional coach as well. Whether this is the start of a trend or a blip on the radar remains to be seen, of course. However, Carroll himself isn’t known for running a fast offense, so there are more questions than people might expect.

“Lou, I’m gonna say this as nicely as I know how: How the &%$ do you not have Bowers as the TE1?!?” Look, that’s a good question, and while I’m secure in my ranking, I have no problem if you prefer Bowers to any other TE this year. To answer your question, I believe the Raiders will throw the ball considerably less this year – somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-100 fewer times over the course of the year. Of course, I still expect Bowers to earn ~24% or so of the target share. But ~132 targets compared to his 153 from ’24 is enough to bump him out of the TE1 spot for me. Don’t worry, he and my TE1 are still miles ahead of (almost) every other TE in 2025. And like I said, I have no problem if you still prefer Bowers as your number 1 ranked TE.

I realize my rankings don’t quite match up. QB19 for Geno Smith is relatively high for only a single WR to be fantasy viable, and only fringe viable at that. I do believe someone else will emerge in this offense; it’s just tricky to guess who. We’ve got the duo of rookie WRs, Dont’e Thornton, who apparently will be the starting X WR, and Jack Bech, who appears to be a Khalil Shakir type of WR in the making. We’ve got the holdovers of DJ Turner and Tre Tucker, who aren’t household names, but are both decent depth WRs in their own right. And then we’ve got the former second-round TE, Michael Mayer. At least one of these players will step up this year thanks to vastly improved coaching and QB play, and it’s very likely I’m ranking Geno Smith too low as a result.

We Need to Have a Talk About…

Michael Mayer

Look, I get it, OK? He’s done absolutely nothing in his first two seasons. Well, not nothing, but pretty dang close. His highest finish was TE35 in 2023. So why should we care about him?

Well, in short, because of the last paragraph of the previous section. SOMEone is going to step up and produce in this offense. Mayer has been making plays throughout training camp more consistently than anyone not-named Jakobi Meyers or Brock Bowers. No, I don’t think Mayer will be revelatory the way Bowers was or other breakout TEs could be. But would I be surprised if he ended up finishing as a low-end TE1? No, I would not. 

Deep League Draft Target

I’m not a huge fan of this player given his age now, but at the same time, it’s rather silly that Raheem Mostert is going as late as he is. Yes, starter Ashton Jeanty should get most/all of the work at RB for the Raiders. However, the RB position is notorious for accumulating injuries throughout the season. I personally think Sincere McCormick gets first crack at this role and could do a little damage in a better offense, but the Raiders are listing Raheem Mostert as the RB2 behind Jeanty right now. What’s more, we’ve seen Mostert Do The Thing before, as recently as 2023, when he was RB2.

With a FantasyPros ADP of 253, fantasy players are routinely taking Mostert outside of the top 20 rounds of a draft.

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Lou Brunson is a Senior Analyst and THE social media brains for Optimus Fantasy. Find his dynasty stylings on right here and at draftbuddy.com.