The culture shift within the Las Vegas Raiders built up slowly through the NFL offseason, cresting to a crescendo as the 2025 season looms.
It began when the Raiders named Tampa Bay Buccaneers general manager John Spytek as their new GM, hoping to stop a string of hires that saw the team churn through five different general managers, including interim hires, since moving to Sin City in 2020.
That culture change continued days later when the team hired Pete Carroll, bringing the veteran coach out of retirement and hoping to stop a similar trend on the sideline. Similar to Spytek, Caroll is the team’s fifth head coach since the franchise moved to Las Vegas.
But this tandem needed a quarterback, and they found one in Geno Smith via a trade that reunited Carroll with his former quarterback in Seattle. In the span of a few short months, the Raiders had a new general manager, a new head coach, a new quarterback, and a new direction.
However, the thing about culture shifts in the game of football is that they only matter so much when the pads come on, the players step between the lines, and the ball is snapped. Sometimes, that culture shift needs a side of something.
Perhaps, a side of simply running through someone’s face on the other side of the line of scrimmage.
When Spytek was hired, his to-do list contained two major items, aside from the head coaching hire. He needed to find a quarterback, and he needed to find a running back.
The trade for Smith checked off the first box, and keeping the Raiders’ first-round pick in that deal paved the way for completing the second task. Enter Ashton Jeanty, the Boise State running back and Heisman Trophy finalist, with a knack for finding every single yard possible on a given play.
Even if that means running through someone’s face.
If you wanted evidence of that culture shift, you just needed to look at the Raiders’ preseason game against the San Francisco 49ers, and this run to the right side:
Business decisions will be made this year.
The Raiders face an uphill climb in the AFC West, a division featuring three playoff teams from a season ago. Beyond ascendant teams in Los Angeles and Denver, they have to deal with the dynasty in Kansas City. Certainly not an easy task.
But this is a team that has vastly improved from a season ago. They improved dramatically in the trade for Smith, doing so at the game’s most important position. They have one of the league’s best young tight ends in Brock Bowers, a reworked offensive line, and a wide receiver room that got a boost in the past few days with the signing of Amari Cooper.
That move caught the attention of others in the media space.
“The Amari Cooper move, I think, is a valuable veteran addition for an offense that I think is going to take a lot of people by surprise this season,” said Mina Kimes on “Pardon The Interruption” this week.
”First of all, they have, I believe, the single biggest upgrade at the quarterback position in the National Football League. Geno Smith, despite being under loads of pressure last year.
“Yes, throwing some interceptions, finished second in on-target rate. Fifth league-wide in completion percentage over expected. You pair him with Ashton Jeanty, hopefully for an improved run game. Perhaps the best tight end in football is Brock Bowers. And Chip Kelly, who has changed a lot since he was last in the NFL,” added Kimes.
“But I am telling you, I think this Raiders offense, they can put up a lot of points.”
On the defensive side of the football, there are questions. Questions that Maxx Crosby alone cannot answer. But questions that Carroll and defensive coordinator Patrick Graham can answer.
The Raiders added several veterans on the defensive side of the ball, including Jeremy Chinn, Jamal Adams, Elandon Roberts, and Eric Stokes. While these moves might not jump off the page, they certainly move the needle in the right direction.
But if there is one area where the Raiders could improve on the defensive side of the football, it would be capitalizing on turnover opportunities. In his yearly column predicting teams that will improve ESPN’s Bill Barnwell — while listing the Raiders as one such team — noted that while Las Vegas forced 33 fumbles last season, they only recovered eight. That 24.2% recovery rate was the second-worst from any team dating back to 1991.
But as Barnwell notes, if you examine the 30 teams since 1991 that recovered fewer than 35% of forced fumbles, those teams recovered 51.6% of fumbles the following season.
And their records improved by two wins.
When you pair that with the improvements already discussed, you start seeing the path.
There is another reason to believe in the Raiders.
The pairing at the top of the ticket has defied expectations before.
A few seasons ago those of us in the media space pointed to the Seahawks as a team in a rebuilding phase. Russell Wilson was no longer with the team, having been traded to the Denver Broncos. Smith, signed by the team ahead of the 2019 season, won the starting job during a training camp battle with Drew Lock and did not look back, as the Seahawks shocked everyone to finish 9-8 — after finishing 7-10 the year before — and earn a spot in the playoffs.
Everyone outside of that locker room wrote Smith, Carroll, and the Seahawks off. But as the quarterback said after a Week 1 win over Wilson and the Broncos, they didn’t write back.
That’s what culture changes can do.
