Raiders' hopes for Jeanty and Washington in 2026
Mike Florio and Chris Simms react to Ashton Jeanty's ankle injury and analyze the Las Vegas Raiders' running back room going into the 2026 season.
Video Transcript
This is the time of year where you're constantly worried about lightning striking and injuring a key player on any of the 32 NFL teams.
Ashton Jeanty- Gosh this hit yesterday, late afternoon, early evening.
Ankle injury, and initially it sounded bad based upon the accounts of the reaction by his teammates.
For it to only be a sprained ankle is a relief, but there's no clear timetable yet for how long he's gonna miss.
And obviously, the higher the sprain on the ankle, the longer the absence.
Jeremiah Love, the third overall pick this year, is dealing with that.
Ashton Jeanty, a top 10 pick last year, who came into the league with a lot of hype, didn't really match it with his performance last year.
And as you had said when he was coming into the draft, you get him against some of the best teams in college football, and he wasn't nearly as effective as he was- Yeah against the teams Boise State usually played.
When you're playing for the Raiders, who were the worst team in the NFL last year, it's kind of hard to get unleashed.
Totally.
And they had high hopes for him this year, and they still do.
We'll see how long he, he's out for.
Yeah, he, he finished strong last year.
He lost a little weight this, this off season and trimmed down, 'cause he felt like he needed to be a little faster.
So, and like you said, you know, it's hard to gauge totally what he was last year just because gosh damn, m- most times you watch the game and go, "There, there's no hole.
I don't care who it is.
You can get Bo Jackson or Jim Brown, they're not gonna do much here with this blocking."
So he had no help that way.
Now hey, we, as we know and we've been making fun of, "Oh, Kirk Cousins is a starter, guys.
Kirk Cousins is a starter."
Oh yeah, is he?
Let's see how that goes.
Okay, okay, we'll see how much longer that lasts.
But you'd like Fernando Mendoza, when he does get in there, to have a Ashton Jeanty behind him.
The good thing is they drafted this kid, Mike Washington Jr. From Arkansas, who's been very good.
He's been really good.
He's big, he runs 43.
I'm sure you've seen the highlights.
He's had a big run in both games so far.
So at least it looks like they have a viable backup.
But like you said, with Jeanty, I just hope it's not a bad high ankle sprain, 'cause that's It sounds like that's what it is, and the way everybody got scared.
You don't get scared when you just, when, when guys roll it inwards, right?
That, that's like, all right, everybody rolls their ankle inwards at some point in their life and has that kind of ankle sprain.
Players can usually get over that one pretty quickly.
It's that high ankle sprain that you're talking about, like Jeremiah Love has, that yeah, that can be iffy, and it can feel it all the way up into the knee, and it can take a long, long time to cut and run full speed with it.
Mike Washington Jr., a fourth round pick out of Arkansas.
He really came on in his final year of college after transferring from New Mexico State.
725 rushing yards in '24.
Got 1,070 in '25.
6.4 yards per carry.
That's the key.
Has a career average in college of 5.0 yards per carry.
So there may be something there.
And it's odd to see a draft pick that high the year after Ashton Jeanty was picked, because you create the impression this is gonna be your, your workhorse- Yeah the centerpiece of your running game.
But maybe they, they found something, a guy who can come in and get it done if Jeanty misses any significant time, or any time at all-
