The Las Vegas Raiders were a bad football team in 2024.
When a team goes 4-13, there is certainly more blame to go around than praise. The coaching was sub-par, the players underperformed, and the front office failed to get the right players to be successful.
While some players certainly earned their money or even outplayed their contracts, the Raiders dealt with too many players whose impact on the team did not match the amount of money that they made.
Here's five such players who made too much money considering what they brought to the table.
1. Gardner Minshew
Minshew signed a two-year, 25-million-dollar deal with the Raiders last offseason, but only 15 million of that was guaranteed.
After his play in 2024, he will likely not be seeing the other 10 million on his contract as he had a career-worst year for Las Vegas. Once he won the underwhelming quarterback battle in the preseason, he became one of the worst starters on the team.
He managed a 2-7 record in nine starts and recorded just nine touchdowns compared to 16 turnovers, which led the league at the time of his season-ending injury in Week 12.
Las Vegas will surely target a quarterback in the offseason, which means Minshew's time as a Raider is likely done. They should cut him and eat the 10.8 million in cap space, which can be distributed between multiple seasons if done after June 1.
2. Christian Wilkins
Christian Wilkins was the only big-money player brought in during Tom Telesco's first free agency class as the General Manager of the Raiders.
While he played incredibly well to begin the season, Wilkins got hurt against the Denver Broncos in Week 5 just as he was starting to show signs of dominance, and he never returned to the gridiron in 2024.
This was by no means the most expensive year of his contract, as he pocketed only 10.3 million all told. But that is still quite a bit for a player who played just south of 250 snaps on the season.
Wilkins will be back with a vengeance in 2025 and should live up to the 33.8 million that he is due next season.
3. Zamir White
White did not rob the Raiders because he cost the franchise a great deal of money in 2024. Instead, he robbed Las Vegas by overperforming at the end of the 2023 season which caused the team to move on from Josh Jacobs.
As a result, the Raiders had the worst rushing attack in the league which was punctuated by White's 183 total yards in eight games.
Still, White made 1.18 million in 2024, which means that he earned roughly $6,500 dollars per rushing yard he gained. That feels like robbery.
4. Andre James
James made almost 9.8 million from the Raiders in 2024 to play roughly 60% of the snaps that he did in the previous two seasons.
In fact, by the middle of the year, James was overtaken by second-round rookie Jackson Powers-Johnson as the starting center on Las Vegas' starting offensive line.
His overall grade on PFF was 53.8, which ranked 50th out of 62 qualifying centers, and his run-blocking grade was even worse. He failed to gain leverage against bigger defensive tackles all season and it hurt the Raiders' ability to run the ball.
If the team cannot find a trade partner, James could be a post-June 1st cut candidate so that he does not rob any more money from the franchise.
5. Davante Adams
I hate to even give Davante Adams more run on this blog because his trade saga took years off of my life. But he robbed the Raiders blind in 2024.
Luckily, the team was able to find a trade partner and get decent compensation in return for the aging wide receiver, but he still cost the team 17.3 million this season.
The Jets will be on the docket for the rest of his large contract as it stands now, but still, Las Vegas took a chunk of money to pay Adams for a mere 209 yards and 1 touchdown.