The Las Vegas Raiders had the league's worst rushing attack by a noticeable margin last season. Fixing it was always going to be a top priority for new head coach Pete Carroll and offensive coordinator Chip Kelly.
The No. 6 overall pick provided the opportunity to make Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty the first draft pick of the Carroll era. The rookie will be the unquestioned workhorse right away, leaving everyone else to pick up what little is left in the Raiders' backfield.
Phase one of remodeling the team's running back room came in free agency. Out went Alexander Mattison, and in came Raheem Mostert. Mostert was never going to be alone atop the depth chart; it was just a matter of how much of a draft investment would be made in a running back.
Raheem Mostert given harsh recommendation before 2025 season
Mostert has had an up-and-down NFL career from a well-traveled start to finding a home with the San Francisco 49ers to another resurgence with the Miami Dolphins. He led the league with 18 rushing touchdowns playing for Miami in 2023, but a fractured sternum greatly limited him last season and paved the way for him to be elsewhere this year.
Aidin Ebrahimi of RotoBaller recently made a list of five running backs who should retire before the 2025 season. Three are free agents who barely played last season -- Ezekiel Elliott, Dalvin Cook, D'Onta Foreman -- and another, Cordarelle Patterson, can barely be classified as a running back. Then Mostert was tacked on, seemingly to make the list five instead of four.
"Proving your doubters wrong is great, but doing it twice is even better," Ebrahimi wrote. "Raheem Mostert did just that throughout his NFL career, but now that he's 33 and on a team with the most hyped RB prospect in ages, doing this for a third time seems very unlikely."
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Ebrahimi went on in his skepticism of Mostert.
"He fractured his sternum in the 2024 season, but played through this injury, which caused his numbers to plummet. Now, he's on the Raiders and is unlikely to see another renaissance now that Ashton Jeanty is in town," Ebrahimi wrote.
The 33-year-old Mostert is unlikely to ever recapture his 2023 form, but it's an incredible stretch to dismiss him to a running back room. Another renaissance was never the expectation for him as a Raider, so to tab that scenario as "unlikely" is obvious. It shows an obliviousness to what Mostert's situation was always going to be this season.
It's one thing to say Mostert will be inconsequential on the field, if things go according to plan, for the Raiders in 2025. But to recommend he retire before the season even starts is equal parts harsh and ridiculous.