In February 2025, following the hiring of now Raiders head coach the Las Vegas Raiders hired Brennan Carroll as their offensive line coach. It was Carroll’s first opportunity to coach an NFL offensive line as his own unit after having previously served as the Seahawks assistant offensive line coach from 2015-2020 where he also spent 2020 as the teams run game coordinator. Following the 2020 season, Carroll left to be the OL coach and OC at the University of Arizona before taking the same role with the Washington Huskies in 2024. While the OL coach at Arizona, their units ranked no higher than 55th and in his one season at Washington they ranked 48th. In Carroll’s one season as run game coordinator with the Seahawks in 2020 they ranked 14th in total rush yards.
After joining the Raiders offensive coaching staff, the team got to work shifting Jackson Powers-Johnson to guard and moving Jordan Meredith to center. Meredith had never logged a snap at center in his college, high school, or professional career. Powers-Johnson meanwhile was the Remington trophy winner and a 1st team All-Rookie selection at center in 2024. Additionally, the Raiders then had a competition between Powers-Johnson and veteran Alex Cappa for the right guard position, a year after Cappa allowed the most sacks, pressures, and hits of all offensive lineman in the NFL. Powers-Johnson would win that competition prior to injuries. The first sign of the Raiders struggles on the offensive line came early in the season when the Raiders struggled to run the ball, had poor run concepts, and consistently left players un blocked or poorly blocked in combo, pull, and help assignments. Carroll, also served as the teams run game coordinator and as most offensive line coaches in the NFL has a huge emphasis on the run game with concepts, coaching, prep, assignments, and much more. The Raiders selected Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty, a finalist for the Heisman award with their 2025 first round selection, and while Jeanty has struggled he also ranks top 5 in the NFL for elusiveness, yards after contact, and missed tackles forced. Additionally, 97% of of Jeanty’s yards this season have come after contact which is 4th in the NFL. Extending beyond the run blocking, the Raiders notably have had injuries on their offensive line with Kolton Miller down since week 4 and Jackson Powers-Johnson getting hurt to miss the remainder of the Raiders season. The Raiders offensive line has struggled in pass protection this season ranking 31st in pass block win rate while they also rank 31st in sacks/game allowed. The most notable though is their NFL worst pressure rate allowed. It’s not a common concept that the Raiders offensive line does have both young and inexperience talent but also talent that can be improved upon, that said the current state of the Raiders offensive line is beyond bad and it likely only gets worse facing 4 teams inside the top 12 for sacks/game coming up on the teams schedule.
The Raiders have allowed 128 pressures and 22 sacks in their last four games after allowing 10 sacks and 44 pressures vs the Cleveland Browns. In that same game, the team not only chose to not play either of their third round rookie offensive lineman over struggling veterans, but in an instance where starting center Will Putnam was injured and replaced by Alex Cappa (who had never taken a snap at C in his NFL career) they then pivoted back to Cappa after an injury forced Putnam back into the game. The Raiders did what they could to not play Caleb Rogers, just a week after the rookie from Texas Tech spent time in practice as the starting guard/center preparing to face the Cowboys before being benched and then made a gameday inactive. Additionally, the Raiders despite struggles from veteran swing tackle Stone Frosythe have refused to play Charles Grant, who needs time to acclimate to the NFL and see if he’s able to take the job at RT going forward.
The poor play extends beyond the current on field display, it extends to the future. If Pete Carroll and his staff are with the Raiders in 2026 remains to be seen, as the team fired OC Chip Kelly after Sunday’s blowout loss to the 2-9 Cleveland Browns marking the 2nd coordinator to be fired this season, a feat only done once in the NFL since 2010. If you’re wondering that was done by the 2020 Detroit Lions who fired their head coach, offensive coordinator, and defensive coordinator in season before then hiring now Lions head coach Dan Campbell that off-season. 73% of teams that fire a coordinator in season, end up firing their head coach at the end of the season and tension is building within the Raiders building with reports of head coach Pete Carroll and former OC Chip Kelly not communicating for over a month. Carroll was brought in to win and establish a culture, so far they’ve lost and established a worse culture than the Raiders have had in likely over a decade. The Raiders aren’t playing young talent, and they aren’t developing a unit that has seen a 2nd round selection, and three third round selections invested into it plus over 20 million a year to Kolton Miller. Whether or not the staff stays in place, the lack of development that is occurring across the board from young receivers, cornerbacks, and interior defensive lineman extends also to the offensive line where DJ Glaze and Jordan Meredith have regressed from their 2024 seasons but also young talent in Grant and Rogers do not get the opportunity to compete and show where they can sit in the future. The Raiders are focused on playing veterans to win, but they aren’t winning. A bad team can afford to be bad and play young talent to get better, see the Browns, but they can’t afford to be bad and be bad by playing veterans over the youth and possible future core of the franchise.
