Ashton Jeanty is 22 and doesn’t deeply remember the Hall of Fame heyday of San Diego Chargers legend LaDainian Tomlinson, among the NFL’s greatest-ever running backs.
“I watch highlights and stuff, all that, and think he’s a great player,” Jeanty said before practice Thursday morning. “I’ve gotten some comparisons to him a couple times.”
Jeanty played like him Sunday for the Las Vegas Raiders.
Like Tomlinson two decades before him, Jeanty paired his rushing prowess with crisp route running against the Miami Dolphins en route to 147 total yards from scrimmage. Jeanty rushed for 102 yards on 23 carries to go with 45 yards and two scores via six receptions and helped the Raiders dictate pace and tempo — like they hope to Sunday against Los Angeles.
With 37 rushing attempts — including seven for 41 yards from rookie running back Mike Washington Jr. — and a diet of completions near the line of scrimmage, Las Vegas possessed the football Sunday for 34:53. Activating Jeanty behind their improved offensive line would help the Raiders dictate tempo against the Chargers at SoFi Stadium.
The matchup is their first divisional showdown.
“Continuing to control the game by running the ball,” said Jeanty, the No. 6 overall draft pick in 2025. “That’s going to be the thing that we do. We definitely want to set the tone with the run game.”
The Raiders tied for the fourth-most Week 1 rushing attempts in the NFL, totaling 37 carries (including late-game kneeldowns from quarterback Cousins) for 130 yards. Rookie wide receiver Malik Benson’s sweep was snuffed out by Miami for an 8-yard loss, and save for that, the Las Vegas backfield embodied coach Klint Kubiak’s ethos.
Kubiak wants to pair effective rushing offense with effective rushing defense first and foremost, his zone-run offense opening play-action passing opportunities down the field. Jeanty serves as a dual-threat back who shows he’s built for a featured workload. Washington plays with burst behind him, making the most of his limited reps.
“A lot of times you’re riding a guy that has a hot hand,” Kubiak said Monday. “So, I think we’ve got two guys that are playing good football. Ashton obviously had a really good game, and we expect more from Mike. Not that he didn’t play well. … But it was his first NFL game and … we got a good look at how he responded against ones vs. ones.”
Though Jeanty’s receptions don’t count as carries, they’re adjacent in the sense that they’re high-percentage passes that give him the chance to run in space. They add a wrinkle for a unit that may be without star tight end Brock Bowers again — as he recovers from the procedure he underwent to fix his injured left meniscus last week — without much risk.
“We want to maximize everything he does,” offensive coordinator Andrew Janocko said of Jeanty before practice Thursday. “We’re trying to use him whether it’s in the pass game, in the run game. He’s a player that has a lot of talent, so we try to take advantage of him however we see fit — whatever the defense gives us that week.”
One reception or carry at a time.
“Everything starts with running the football for us, whether it’s running, play-action,” Janocko added. “But for us, this game starts up front — and I always truly believe that. I think that’s just (what) we believe in. So, we’re just trying to maximize what we do in that aspect.”
Contact Sam Gordon at sgordon@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BySamGordon on X.
