With their Week 17 loss to the New York Giants, the Las Vegas Raiders took a firm grip on the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. The job of securing that pick won't be finished unless they lose to the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 18, but the first big step of that quest is now complete.
Ideally, the Raiders would have pivoted toward playing younger players weeks ago. While some of this year's draft class clearly weren't ready to play at the start of the season, after about Week 10, even the rawest of those rookies couldn't have been worse than the veterans who had been rolled out.
But leaning all the way into a youth movement is the antithesis of why Pete Carroll was hired as head coach. The 74-year-old was brought in to bring credibility to the latest rebuild and accelerate it, so it's no surprise that he was hesitant to bench veterans in favor of young players.
If the lack of alignment between the front office and Carroll wasn't already becoming obvious, continuing to trot out veterans over younger players in what was destined to be a double-digit loss season solidified it.
Daniel Jeremiah spotlights the No. 1 problem with Raiders' rebuild
While it is easy to call into question the severity of the injuries that some Raiders players had who didn't suit up against the Giants, the team's only touchdown in the game was a symbol of the core problem in Las Vegas.
With rookie wide receiver Jack Bech inactive, veteran and Carroll-era Seattle Seahawk Tyler Lockett played 56 percent of the offensive snaps. In the third quarter, Geno Smith connected with Lockett on a four-yard touchdown, the only time the team found the end zone all day.
If it had been Bech, fellow rookie Dont'e Thornton Jr., or even Tre Tucker, Raider Nation would have felt better about that touchdown on an otherwise dismal day for anything other than improving their draft positioning.
The 33-year-old Lockett, however, is as inconsequential to the future in Las Vegas as he has been since coming aboard in the present with just 21 catches in nine games as a Raider. He will not be back next season, and he might be playing his final NFL game on Sunday.
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During the game against the Giants, NFL Network draft analyst and Los Angeles Chargers radio analyst Daniel Jeremiah pointed out the core issue for the Raiders on social media without even naming them.
"Having a bad team with a bunch of young players gaining experience & growing sure beats having a bad team with a bunch of washed up veteran guys hogging reps," Jeremiah wrote.
Jeremiah was pretty clearly comparing the 3-13 Tennessee Titans and 3-13 New York Giants, who have a young quarterback and a bunch of other young talent in place, to the now 2-14 Raiders, who have neither of those things.
The idea of getting the young players valuable reps was thrown out the window by Carroll, outside of his early-season vouching for Bech to play more. And that vouch for Bech didn't even stick consistently, due to circumstances both in and out of Carroll's control.
Hiring an older head coach when your roster is in rebuild mode is a dichotomy that's hard to overcome. That the Raiders couldn't overcome or navigate it isn't surprising, and Jeremiah perfectly summed up the situation as another lost season winds down.