Ashton Jeanty has been the clear-cut top running back in this year’s NFL Draft class — and for months, he’s been widely projected to land with the Las Vegas Raiders at No. 6 overall. That buzz only intensified after Raiders general manager John Spytek recently made comments that seemed to hint at his interest in an elite playmaker at the position.
“I’m gonna be careful about talking about any specific player,” Spytek said. “But, more broadly to the running back question — I mean, we just saw Saquon Barkley just change the Eagles in one year. Now, they had a great team around him, and it was adding an elite player. I think when you sit where we sit, the idea is to add elite players at any position. I don’t try to devalue any certain position.”
Jeanty, for his part, seemed to lean into that comparison before Spytek’s comments even surfaced.
“Most people, they watched the Eagles win the Super Bowl a couple of months ago, they watched Saquon run through everyone in the playoffs, and they thought to themselves, This is amazing,” Jeanty said. “I watched it and I thought something different. I thought, That can be me.”
But while the Raiders once appeared to be the frontrunners, that may no longer be the case.
According to NFL Draft analyst Todd McShay, Las Vegas is no longer expected to take Jeanty at No. 6 — and in a surprise twist, it’s now the Jacksonville Jaguars who could pull the trigger a pick earlier.
📲 Follow The Sporting News on WhatsApp
“Jacksonville is not drafting Mason Graham and I’m told the Raiders are not taking Ashton Jeanty at six,” McShay said on The McShay Show.
The Jaguars were initially linked to Michigan defensive tackle Mason Graham, but as Peter Schrager noted in his latest mock draft, the franchise’s new leadership may be looking to make a splash on offense instead.
“General manager James Gladstone won’t be timid in his debut draft, and new coach Liam Coen is an offensive mastermind, looking for playmakers. Jeanty is everything they could ever want in a first pick,” Schrager wrote.
That thought was echoed Wednesday on ESPN’s Get Up.
“I believe that James Gladstone, coming from the Rams organization — where character and game-breaking ability take high priority — is someone who can look to his colleagues, his fanbase, and his owner and say, ‘I believe with our first pick as a franchise, we can go with Ashton Jeanty and say, that’s what we want to be and that’s our identity.’”
If McShay and Schrager's prediction holds true, the Raiders would have to do everything they could to trade up to beat the Jaguars for Jeanty.