The Raiders have a MAJOR problem...

Last Sunday in San Francisco, Ashton Gentry touched the ball 11 times and gained 20 yards. Six carries for 25 yards and five catches for a loss of five yards. And a week before that game in New York, he had two carries. Two carries for nine yards while a fourth round rookie named Mike Washington Jr. ran the ball 25 times. And the reason for that was A coach's call. It was Clint Kubiak that called for that. Ashton Gentry was the sixth overall pick in the NFL draft, and the Raiders are now averaging the fewest rushing yards in the league since they took him. So a lot of people are asking a lot of different questions. Is Ashton Gentry straight up bad? Is he being wasted on this team with Clint Kubiak? Let's get into it. And the answer might not be so clear, but it might be what... Dictates what the Raiders do with him next. So in the first four games of this season, he ran for 264 yards, 66 a game on average, and 102 of them came against Miami in week one. In the five games since then, he has 98 yards, 19.6 a game. A lot of people are starting to look at his stats, his analytics, and starting to do the math, and that works out to about under three yards a carry. And nobody else is really carrying the load either. In that same five-game stretch, the team's second back, Mike Washington Jr., kept getting handed the ball. On the season, Gentry has 362 rushing yards, and Washington has 275. The fourth-round rookie is within 87 yards. of the sixth overall pick and if you zoom out a little bit a bit of the offense is stuck because since the raiders drafted him they averaged 75 rushing yards a game and much like a lot of the defensive stats with this team that is the lowest in the league and 3.31 yards a carry is the lowest in the league as well the drop is real and fans are starting to talk about it and fans are disappointed and you see it everywhere on social media but to understand it you have to look at What he was supposed to be and what the expectations are. Gentry was a sixth overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. The first running back off the board and the highest since Saquon Barkley went second in 2018. The Raiders should have taken tackle Armand Membu instead, the Bleacher Report wrote last October, because quality running backs are always found later in the draft. His rookie year did not prove them wrong. He ran for 975 yards, the 18th most out of 60 players with 500 yards in 2025 and 2026. He had two standout games, 138 yards at Chicago in week four and 128 against Houston in week 16 and almost nothing around those two games. FanSided also had him with the lowest rushing EPA in the NFL as a rookie. His rushing DVOA. It was minus 14.7, and this season it is a minus 28.3%. And the original plan for him is much bigger than those stats. The Raiders said in May that they intended to use him as their workhorse. A workhorse back with six carries is not a workhorse and not being utilized as a workhorse. And we will get to that because... There is a lot of questions with a lot of his statistics and numbers. But before we get into those, if you guys are enjoying the daily content on everything that's going on with the Las Vegas Raiders, I'm going to continue to keep you guys updated with daily updates on postgame reactions. We got practice updates, injury reports, all that fun stuff here on the channel. So if you aren't yet, make sure you are subscribed and we just hit 4000 subscribers. Thank you so much for the support out here on the channel, guys. I really do appreciate it. And we're well on our way to our goal of 5000. subscribers. So if you haven't yet, make sure to hit that subscribe button. Let's get back into Ashton Gentry. Now when he does actually get the ball, which has been getting diminished recently, his efficiency numbers are ugly. Next gen stats has him stuffed on 25% of his carries the highest rate amongst running backs with at least 50 carries. And Kyle from fantasy points found that 47% of his career runs have been hit at or behind the line of scrimmage. On 180 carries this season, he gets one yard before contact per carry dead last amongst running backs. 21 backs average more than two. Now, a lot of people like Kyle are suggesting that maybe it's on the offensive line and that there could be some proof to back that up. He has had more than two yards before contact and only two of his 25 games. And in those two games, he averaged 5.86 yards a carry, the second best amongst running backs. And going back to two weeks ago, Rex Ryan called Ashton Gentry the worst draft pick of the last 20 years as a running back. And fans are starting to point out and notice little things in his game as well. As one clip of his six carries against San Francisco, a couple fans are pointing out how his body language just looks horrible. Now, I don't know if it's 100% his fault, but a large percentage of it, it probably does fall back on him. But a running back who is hit at the line. On almost half of his runs is not getting that much help, but that could be explained for when he does get the ball. But now here's the other thing over the last couple of weeks. He's not even getting the ball. Let's go back all the way to October 18th of this year against the Buffalo Bills, because that is really where it started to shift. Jenty had 10 carries for 22 yards and Washington had nine carries for 43 yards. After that game, it was said that Clint Kubiak wanted I want a production out of all three. And then a week later against the Rams, Jenty was averaging 1.7 yards a carry and the Raiders had 37 yards on 14 plays. And then came the Jets game on November 1st. Jenty had no touch in the first quarter and his first one came with six minutes left in the first half. He finished with two carries for nine yards and a 45-yard catch and Washington had 25 carries for 80. Head coach, Clint Kubiak said that the two carries were his call and that Gentry is quote, still going to be a huge part of the run game moving forward. And that he's going to be a big part of this team moving forward. Gentry also said that the plan was communicated to him before the start of that game. Now there's a little bit of context to this before that game, during that week, he said that a couple of the jets defenders did not really want to tackle and was basically Basically calling out their team. Some of their team members called it bulletin board material, and some people were speculating that maybe the Raiders were trying to send Ashton Gentry a message for doing stuff like that. However, head coach Clint Kubiak once again spoke out on the situation and said that no, that had nothing to do with it and did not factor into their decision. Over the last three games, Gentry has 16 carries and Washington has 37, although 25 of those came in one game alone. But that was just one interesting week, right? Well, no, because then in San Francisco, it continued to get a little bit stranger. He played only about two-thirds of the snaps, 64% against Washington's 34%, and he still had six carries, the same as Washington. He had 22 routes and was targeted seven times and Washington ran for three routes and got no targets. The seven targets turned into three catches for a loss of five yards. Now Washington, while he's been a pretty good option, I don't know if he's the answer either. He finished that game with a loss of three yards on six. Touches a lot of people again on social media speculating that the backfield looks wide open now that Fernando Mendoza has taken over as the new starting quarterback and the Raiders have two backs that they're looking to defer to and a lot of people speculating that maybe they're not utilizing them correctly. And they have basically no run game. And again, Clint Kubiak has been answering much of the same questions all week, although Mendoza has been a nice distraction, I guess, for him. On November 4th, he was asked whether Gentry can still be a bell cow. And he said, yes, absolutely. That's exactly how he envisions him on this team. He said that Ashton Gentry is a young player with a really bright future and that he is so glad that the Raiders have him. Although that was on the same day that he also said that the split between Gentry and Washington will be evaluated on a week to week basis. And the offensive coordinator said that running the ball is a full team game. They keep bringing it back to this team aspect. It doesn't fall on one player specifically. But all of that being said, and those two comments from Clint Kubiak specifically don't necessarily add up, and a lot of fans are continuing to ask questions about it. And if you just continue to scour through social media, his Dynasty ADP is at an all-time low, 18.3, according to Ryan McDowell using the DLF data. There's a lot of fans saying that his usage, the way that they're utilizing him is incorrect and that, you know, for a game where he got five attempts and only three targets, the word that they would use is genuine malpractice. That list, though, is a graveyard of expectations. Brees Hall is at 45.3. You got a couple other players that are really high on that list, like Barkley, for example, all of them at their own lowest point. And Gentry is the name on top of it all. And Sam Warren also pointed out that, you know, His drops continue to be an issue for this team, and the ball is going to continue to be taken away from him if that continues. The Raiders sleeper account has continued to post a lot of this all week, saying that it is absolutely time to hit the panic button on this Ashton Gentry situation. And again, Sam Warren pointing out that the backfield no longer belongs to Ashton Gentry like it maybe once did or even like people were expecting it to. Now the Raiders do have some time here to make a decision or continue to make decisions on him because his rookie deal runs through 2028 with 2029 being a club option. But that is why right now and this season matters for Ashton Gentry. They have two more years of control to find out what he is before you have to make a massive decision, if not already having to make a massive decision. And bringing it back to the O-line, if that is half of the problem, The Raiders have tried to make some attempts to fix it. Kubiak moved Caleb Rodgers into the right guard spot in place of JPJ, and he said fixing the run game falls on him, and they're continuing to work at and tweak things. Although some of the numbers suggest that the problem actually predates a lot of these moves and some of the stuff that they are trying to put in place. As of October 7th, FanSided had Washington's rushing at 1.1% and Gentry's at minus 28%. So again, if you look at some of the numbers, Gentry was getting 2.63 yards after contact a carry at that point, which means that the run game doesn't really have a chance to succeed before it even gets going at that point. And the Raiders' next three games are a huge test for not just Ashton Gentry, but new quarterback Fernando Mendoza and a few others as well. Next three games are Seattle, then you got Denver, and then in Cleveland. And that is a stretch that Kubiak definitely has to think about and has to game plan for. That is a stretch where the usage and the utilization of some of these players is really going to be called into question after these games. If the O-line can be a little bit more supportive and Jentay gets 15 carries and the line gives him something, right, then we learn something about Jentay and what these numbers actually are showing us. But if he gets six carries and seven targets, again, we learn a little bit more about Kubiak and what the utilization is going to look like moving forward, I guess. And there are some fans, and I've waited till this point in the video to bring this up, that are like, hey, uh, Time to move on from this player as well. But let me know in the comments how you feel about that. Should they look to maybe trade this player? Is it time to give up on this player? Is there something else that's suggesting that, hey, there's actually something here, but we're not even giving the guy a chance to succeed. Again, the line gives him almost nothing. One yard before contact last in that category. And he has stuffed on 25% of his carries. I'm not ready to call him a bust yet, but I do think there needs to be a bit of change in the way that they're utilizing him right now. And I do think that he needs help, much like a lot of guys on this team need help. They're still a young team. They're definitely far from perfect. And it goes back to the defense as well, where you do need to make some changes. What to watch Sunday, though. It's going to be very interesting because they're not changing the playbook. Mendoza is just coming in. They're still running the same thing. It's a new quarterback. First game without Kirk Cousins. But how many carries does he get in the first half? How they're utilizing him? And how many does he get before contact? But let me know how you feel in the comments below. Is the problem more Ashton Gentry or is the problem falling more on the O-line and protecting him basically, giving him a chance to succeed? Let me know how you feel in the comments below. If you haven't yet, make sure to hit that subscribe button. Guys, my name is Darius Dominguez. This is Raiders Digest. I'll see you in the next video.