LAS VEGAS — If the Raiders are trying to hide their love of star prospect Ashton Jeanty, they’re not doing a good job of it.

The powers that be in Henderson are acting like awkward, bespectacled teenagers who can’t help but shyly drop their head and flash a silly grin every time their crush’s name gets mentioned.

Not that this analogy is coming from any sort of personal experience. Nope, not at all.

But the flirtations between Raiders’ brain trust and the unquestioned best running back in the draft are getting more and more obvious.

Almost to the point they can’t possibly be real.

‘Be careful’

When Jeanty’s name was mentioned in a question during Friday’s news conference at the team facility, coach Pete Carroll leaned away from the microphone and appeared to say something before general manager John Spytek answered the question.

It wasn’t clear in the room at the time, but a later viewing of the video appeared to suggest Carroll had reminded Spytek to “be careful” when answering the question about their feelings on the Boise State star.

“I’m going to be careful about talking about any specific player, but more broadly to the running back question, I mean we just saw Saquon Barkley just change the Eagles in one year,” Spytek said.

Yeah, not quite. But more on that later. Spytek thankfully conceded the Eagles were already a great team before adding Barkley before my hard-core analytics brethren experienced a simultaneous brain explosion.

But he also pushed back on the notion the running back position has declined in importance.

“I think when you sit where we sit, the idea is to add elite players at any position,” Spytek continued. “And I don’t try to devalue any certain position. I mean, there’s times in games where there’s nobody you’d rather have than the best kicker in the league, too, at least in that moment, right? So, there’s certain ways to build a team, and I don’t know where we got to a place where we don’t feel like running backs are valued.”

That came on the heels of the funny anecdote Spytek shared a couple of weeks ago about how his son threatened to find a new family if his father dared not select Jeanty with the sixth pick.

Jeanty hasn’t done much to extinguish the flame. He has spoken glowingly of the Raiders and his visit with the team in several interviews, while also lauding Carroll and his work with one of Jeanty’s early football idols, Marshawn Lynch.

All of this has led mock drafts to connect Jeanty to the Raiders at nearly a 60% clip and oddsmakers to install him as a pretty heavy favorite to be picked No. 6 on Thursday.

It can’t be that obvious. Spytek and Carroll are very sharp. They wouldn’t make sloppy mistakes like the Carroll “off-mic” reminder if they were really “Jeanty or bust.”

Tipping your hand in terms of the player you want removes so much value and so much bargaining power. They wouldn’t let that happen. Even if you’re not trying to shop the pick, you’re signaling to the entire world that teams have to trade up to the top five to get Jeanty if they want him.

There’s just no way. Unless they’re playing chess and trying to be so obvious that the other teams in the league think there’s no way it could be true and are therefore double-fooled?

That would be a pretty fun game to play, honestly. We’ll find out Thursday.

While teams have far more information and actual insight, they are really just like fans trying to predict how everything will play out. The Raiders, like all teams, track official visits and interviews and who attended which pro days and private workouts, trying to connect the dots.

“At the same time, that’s a lot of wasted energy to me, because at the end of the day we have no idea what these teams are going to do,” Spytek admitted. “We have a sense, but we’re guessing.”

So are the Raiders tipping their hand or playing games? It’s anyone’s guess at this point.

But as to Spytek’s dissertation about running backs, the answer to who devalued running backs over the years is people like him. Smart people.

The RB question

Jeanty isn’t good. He’s phenomenal. But he’s a running back, and team-building is a matter of simple economics. A great running back can make a very good team elite.

But building a running game is far more about the offensive line, scheme and a good passing game to set it up. Barkley elevated the Eagles because they were the Eagles.

Do you really think he would have done the same thing for the Giants had he stayed in New York?

Of course not. And that’s not a guess.

©2025 Las Vegas Review-Journal. Visit reviewjournal.com.. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.