Tanking? Not for the Raiders as they expect to win this season

By Case Keefer (contact)

Saturday, Sept. 9, 2023 | 2 a.m.

Josh Jacobs has only participated in four practices with the Raiders since his contract dispute ended last week, but he’s pretty certain he’s spoken one-on-one with each of his teammates in the locker room.

Greeting everyone was important to him not only because he says it’s how he was raised and his obligation as a team captain for the third straight year, but also because he had a serious message to impart. The 25-year-old who led the NFL in rushing a season ago wanted to make sure everyone understood his lone goal and the team’s overall level of expectations going into the season opener at 1:25 p.m. Sunday at the Denver Broncos.

“Since I’ve been here, I’ve only had one winning season so really all the individual accolades don’t mean anything if you don’t win,” Jacobs said Thursday. “So, for me, that’s my main focus this year — to win.”

That mentality extends all the way to the top of the franchise. This year’s team isn’t going to undermine the Al Davis Memorial Torch outside the front of the Raiders’ facility in Henderson that reads, “the fire that burns the brightest in the Raiders organization is the will to win.”

And while yes, it may sound like such a desire should go without saying, that’s not necessarily the case in the NFL this year. With at least one top-flight college quarterback prospect draft eligible next April (USC’s Caleb Williams) if not another (North Carolina’s Drake Maye), teams tanking to secure better capital in the 2024 NFL Draft is a trending topic.

Many have accused the Arizona Cardinals of looking two seasons ahead after a series of curious personnel moves including cutting presumed starting quarterback Colt McCoy and not officially naming his replacement going into Week 1. The Raiders are on a short list of other teams — with the likes of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Washington Commanders — that some have suggested might be open to bottoming-out this season.

Even a subset of fans have championed the idea, lured by the thought of securing a young franchise quarterback that can make the team a contender for years to come.

But it’s not happening with the Raiders.

If Las Vegas is in position to pick someone like Williams, it’s because this season turned into a spectacular failure. And that’s not remotely on the minds of franchise frontmen like general manager Dave Ziegler and coach Josh McDaniels, because their jobs won’t be secure if the Raiders are among the worst teams in the league.

“I think we’re measured in wins and losses,” Ziegler said at the end of training camp when asked what would represent a success to him this season. “I think that’s definitely part of it. And I think another part of it is, I would love to see our young players that we've invested in continue to grow, continue to improve throughout the season to where you're getting to the end, and you have a lot of guys that have contributed to a winning season.”

Ziegler didn’t exactly guarantee a playoff berth, but his messaging was more hopeful than it sounded by midseason last year when he shifted to talk about building a more sustainable core with the Raiders. In part because of a large, promising rookie draft class, the Raiders feel like they’ve made strides toward putting that foundation in place.

Many football fans may consider the Raiders’ roster downgraded this year, but that’s not the sentiment within the organization. They feel like they’ve gotten better, or at least gotten players that fit better with McDaniels’ vision for the team.

“I just think there’s a higher confidence throughout the building, there’s a higher confidence with the coaching staff because expectations are understood,” Ziegler said. “Standards are understood. The way we do things and how we prepare, people understand why we do those things. A big part of the growth is for people understanding the why.”

McDaniels has a meticulous coaching style that doesn’t mesh with everyone. He’s implemented complex schemes on both sides of the ball and demands long hours for players to master them, part of the reason why he rated lowly on the NFL Players Association’s report card for working conditions this offseason.

Emboldening players like Crosby, who’s renowned for his tireless work ethic, and new quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, who broke into the NFL under McDaniels’ watch as offensive coordinator in New England, as faces of the franchise could change attitudes this year.

“We have a good locker room, a very tight-knit group of guys who are willing to work, and that’s what it takes here,” Garoppolo said in his weekly news conference Wednesday. “You have to be able to work every day, day in and day out, but it’s just a fun group to be with. I’m honored to be a captain.”

Garoppolo comes from a culture of winning with the San Francisco 49ers, and he could instill some of the same principles with the Raiders. San Francisco attempted to draft his replacement two years ago, trading up to the No. 3 overall pick to select Trey Lance before the plan backfired.

The 49ers recently traded Lance, who missed almost all of last season with an ankle injury, to the Dallas Cowboys for a fourth-round pick.

Lance could be seen as one of the latest cautionary tales of a high draft pick not being guaranteed to work out. Tanking therefore is not as foolproof of a strategy as some make it sound.

It’s worth noting that none of the last 10 Super Bowl winners used a top-five pick on their starting quarterback. Eli Manning was the last top overall pick to win a championship with the team that drafted him, the New York Giants, in 2012.

Limiting the sample to top-five picks might sound arbitrary, especially when considering reigning Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes went 10^th overall to the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2017 NFL Draft. But the Chiefs were coming off a 12-4 season that year with solid but unspectacular quarterback Alex Smith.

In other words, winning now and keeping an eye on the future is possible in the NFL.

It can just make an awkward roster makeup like the one the Raiders currently hold. A large number of the Raiders’ players are in developmental mode this season, but they also have a trio of superstars in their prime — Jacobs, Crosby and wide receiver Davante Adams — that understandably would never sign off on a wasted year.

Jacobs specifically initially said he’d be open to playing on the franchise tag he vehemently opposed if the Raiders significantly upgraded the rest of the roster. When he failed to sign the tag and report to training camp, some saw it as a sign that Ziegler didn’t fulfill Jacobs’ expectations.

Maybe there’s some truth in that, but now that Jacobs is back, he seems genuinely encouraged by the new pieces around him.

“We definitely got a lot faster,” Jacobs said. “We’ve got a lot of guys that love the game, and we’ve got a lot of guys with high IQs. That's the first thing I've noticed. I think I saw (new strong safety Marcus) Epps make a play today and I was like, 'Damn.’ He got from one side of the field to the other and made a play that we thought was a touchdown. So just to be able to see that and obviously Maxx being the leader that he is on that defense to see him take another leap, it's just been crazy to me. It's got me really excited for the season."

The Raiders may be projected as one of the worst teams in the NFL, but they don’t see themselves as that. They won’t be angling for a high draft pick.

“We’re going to play to our standards regardless of who’s talking,” cornerback Nate Hobbs said. “The outside chatter, that don’t mean nothing to us. We’re going to prove it to ourselves and our peers around the league. That’s all that matters.”

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or