For a few hours on Sunday, Raiders fans and half of fantasy football Twitter thought the worst. Ashton Jeanty, the No. 6 overall pick who signed a 4-year, $35.9 million deal after finishing runner-up for the Heisman at Boise State, went down at practice and couldn't put weight on his leg leaving the field, according to Vinny Bonsignore.
Adam Schefter confirmed Jeanty was helped off, and the scene got grimmer from there. Bonsignore also reported the entire Raiders team gathered on the field to acknowledge the injury before practice resumed — the kind of moment that sends a jolt through a building and a fanbase at the same time.
Naturally, the not-knowing turned into hours of dread. Fantasy accounts spiraled, with SleeperNFL posting a string of increasingly panicked tweets throughout the night — from disbelief to prayers — while the fantasy community braced for the news everyone feared.
please be okay Ashton Jeanty 🙏
The gallows humor came out too. JJ Zachariason leaned into the shared misery of fantasy managers everywhere, and Scott Barrett half-joked that James Conner needed to be on a flight to Vegas if things were as bad as they looked. Hayden Winks even ran the numbers on what a season-ending injury would do to the running back rankings, slotting a since-elevated Mike Washington near Quinshon Judkins territory. All of it was speculation stacked on top of an incomplete picture, and it captures just how much fantasy value is tied up in one 21-year-old's ankle.
The relief finally came just before 3 a.m. Eastern. Schefter reported, alongside Ian Rapoport, that Jeanty is believed to have sprained his ankle — not the knee injury some had feared after an earlier report from Ryan McFadden. The Raiders still don't know how long he'll be out, but per Schefter, it is not considered a long-term injury, and the organization is reportedly breathing a sigh of relief.
It's the best-case outcome for a Raiders offense that was built around Jeanty as the centerpiece after Las Vegas made him the highest-drafted player to sign his rookie deal this year. A sprained ankle in August still isn't nothing, and Las Vegas will be cautious given the money and the workload already committed to him. But compared to what everyone was bracing for on that practice field, this is the news the Raiders needed heading into the season.