The Raiders’ running back situation has been awful all season, but it hit a new low in Sunday’s loss to the 49ers.
Ashton Jeanty, the running back the Raiders drafted with the sixth overall pick last year, had a historically bad game catching passes out of the back field, finishing with five catches for negative-five yards.
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Yes, that’s negative yardage for the game. Raiders quarterback Kirk Cousins threw seven passes to Jeanty, and these were the results: incomplete, 3 yards, 3 yards, incomplete, -3 yards, -7 yards, -1 yard.
That’s the second-worst performance ever for a player with at least five catches in a game. The only player ever to finish with fewer yards was Jamie Caleb of the 1960 Browns, who somehow finished a game with five catches for -18 yards. It’s unclear how Caleb managed that feat, but Caleb finished his career with seven catches for -26 yards, so he was doing something spectacularly wrong when the ball was thrown to him.
And “spectacularly wrong” describes everything about the Raiders’ running backs this season. In Sunday’s loss, Jeanty was their leading rusher, with 25 yards on six carries. The Raiders’ other running back, Mike Washington, had six carries for negative-three yards. Between the two of them, Jeanty and Washington had 17 touches for 17 yards. One yard per touch is pathetic.
For the season, the Raiders have a total of 222 rushing attempts for 642 yards, a horrendous average of 2.89 yards per carry. They’re the only team in the NFL averaging less than three yards per carry. Nothing is going right for the Raiders when the ball is in the running backs’ hands.