Ashton Jeanty was supposed to be the unquestioned centerpiece of the Raiders' offense heading into 2026. Instead, camp and the preseason opener have turned into a two-man show, and the second man is making noise loud enough that fantasy analysts are now openly hedging on Jeanty's ceiling.
Mike Washington Jr., Las Vegas' 4th-round pick out of Arkansas, has looked the part from day one. He ran for 1,070 yards in his final college season and then blitzed the combine with a 4.33-second 40-yard dash and a 1.51 10-yard split, elite numbers for a back built at 6-foot-2, 228 pounds. The Raiders liked what they saw enough to give him first-team reps on the very first day of training camp.
Then he backed it up in live action. In the preseason opener against the Cardinals, Washington turned 6 carries into 63 yards, including a 53-yard burst that was reportedly the longest run by a Raiders player in a preseason game since at least 2017. Jeanty, by contrast, saw his night end early after just 3 carries for 16 yards and no catches in a 27-14 loss.
Hayden Winks flagged another Washington explosive run, calling him "sick af" and joking to "put him on ice."
That's the kind of flash that gets fantasy analysts talking, and Yahoo Fantasy's Josh and Hayden didn't hold back on their read of where this is headed.
The Yahoo Fantasy Forecast crew said flatly they expect Washington to eat into Jeanty's snap share in 2026.
None of this is coming out of nowhere schematically, either. New head coach Klint Kubiak runs a wide-zone rushing scheme, and he's made clear he wants a legitimate 1-2 punch in the backfield rather than a bell-cow workload for one guy. Kubiak has already used Washington in space on tosses and zone runs, giving the offense a change-of-pace element Jeanty, a more between-the-tackles, contact-balance runner, doesn't offer in the same way.
Jeanty himself has been publicly gracious about it, saying it's "always great" to come out of a game and have another back step in with no drop-off, and that he believes Washington can help the team win games. That's a good look for team chemistry, but it's also exactly the kind of quote that makes fantasy managers nervous about touch distribution in a backfield that was drafted with Jeanty as a top-10 PPR pick.
Jeanty is still the clear lead back on paper, and Raiders coaches have said he's doing everything necessary to hold onto a full-time role. But between the rookie's explosiveness through 1 preseason game and Kubiak's stated desire to rotate bodies, Jeanty's path to bell-cow numbers in 2026 no longer looks like a lock, it looks like something worth watching every single week.