What will the Raiders' record be in 2024?
Prediction: 9-8
Floor: 6-11
Ceiling: 11-6
The Raiders are a difficult team to figure out this season because so much hinges on how well Gardner Minshew and the offense perform. There are a handful of other new players that the team will need to rely on as well, including Zamir White, Brock Bowers, and Cody Whitehair.
According to Sharp Football Analysis, the Raiders play one of the toughest schedules in the NFL in 2024, which is not unusual for them. Somehow every season, Las Vegas is in the bottom third of the league in terms of easy scheduling, and this season is no different. The caveat is that although they play a hard schedule this season, it is technically easier than last season's.
For these reasons, the Raiders' floor is going 6-11. I see surefire wins over the Carolina Panthers, Denver Broncos (2), Pittsburgh Steelers, and New Orleans Saints, and I think the team could split with both the Los Angeles Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs like they did a season ago, but I won't count on that Chiefs win.
There are a handful of incredibly difficult games on the schedule this year too, however. I see it as unlikely that the team will win on the road against the Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, Miami Dolphins, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That combined with a loss to both the Chargers and Chiefs makes the ceiling of this team 11-6.
The toss-up games will be where the Raiders determine what kind of football team they can be this year. Home contests against the Cleveland Browns, Atlanta Falcons, Kansas City Chiefs and Jacksonville Jaguars as well as a road test against the Los Angeles Rams are the games I see as up-in-the-air.
I think the Raiders are capable of beating at least two of those four teams at home and even if they drop the road contest at SoFi against the Rams, that puts them at 9 wins.
There are factors I cannot predict at this moment that will surely affect the outcome of these games down the line, but as I see it now, the team should be somewhere around 9-8. If they steal a few victories, they could find themselves in the playoffs, but no matter what they do, they won't be at the top of the draft board next season.