The Las Vegas Raiders entered Week 5 of the 2025 NFL season with a handful of key players set to be out due to injury. Kolton Miller recently ended up on the Injured Reserve, Brock Bowers' knee injury is worse than originally thought, and both Michael Mayer and Eric Stokes could not suit up either.
This left the Silver and Black without three of their best starters and, arguably, their best depth piece. Las Vegas had a skeleton crew at tight end, a shaky starter at left tackle and a rookie third-rounder making his first-ever NFL start at cornerback.
Things were already bleak heading into Lucas Oil Stadium to take on the 3-1 Indianapolis Colts. Then, on Friday, it was announced that starting outside linebacker Germaine Pratt would not travel with the team for a non-injury-related reason. Fans hoped that everything was okay in Pratt's personal life.
It sure sounds like Germaine Pratt is causing drama for Raiders
However, the sudden nature of his absence left the Raiders a bit shorthanded, as the team was now down four starters, including two of their best coverage players on defense. When asked about Pratt's absence after the 40-6 loss, head coach Pete Carroll added a new layer to the drama.
"Yeah. Um, just decided to go with the other guys."Pete Carroll on Germaine Pratt's absence
While Carroll did not necessarily say anything definitive here, Raider Nation is smart enough to read between the lines. If Pratt had a personal issue to attend to or an explained absence, Carroll would have said that.
But he didn't. He said that the team decided "to go with the other guys," and mysteriously, Pratt was not on the team's flight to Indianapolis. This paints a dark picture of an emerging issue behind the scenes.
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Raider Nation is not alone in their nefarious thoughts about this situation, as the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Vincent Bonsignore also believes that there is more to the story than the fan base is currently being fed.
"My take: Clearly something happened behind the scenes."Vincent Bonsignore on Germaine Pratt
Pratt was the apple of the team and fan base's eyes when he was shockingly released from the Cincinnati Bengals this offseason, and he has been the Raiders' best overall linebacker during the 2025 NFL season.
Yet, it seems like there is trouble brewing between the veteran linebacker and the aging coach. Fans are curious to see how this situation plays out, but one thing is for sure: there's more to this Germaine Pratt story than him simply not traveling with the team, and Pete Carroll all but confirmed that.