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@ARIAshton Jeanty — RB, LV — 2026
Verdict
TARGET at ADP 12.4 (FFC PPR mocks, 2026-07-07) — medium confidence. The market's case is fair: No. 6 overall capital, a 321-touch rookie season, and a new run-tilted head coach — priced as RB6 at the 1/2 turn. But the market is still anchored to the surface line (3.67 YPC, RB16 in PPG) on a 5.5-win team, and it under-weights three things: (1) his usage was already elite-band everywhere — 84.3% backfield opportunity share, 26.4 weighted opportunities/g, 85% of inside-10 carries, 90.6% on-field share in one-score games; (2) the scoring drought was environment, not role — LV ran only 20 inside-10 rush attempts all season, the emptiest goal-line pie a bellcow has been handed, and the efficiency drag was substantially the line's (contacted at/behind the LOS on 54% of carries, 2nd-worst in the NFL, while posting 61 missed tackles forced, 5th); (3) every structural input just improved — Linderbaum at center, Miller back at LT, a career zone-scheme staff, and a play-caller publicly planning Christian McCaffrey-style all-downs usage — while his backfield competition got *weaker* (Mostert/White/Laube out, an R4 rookie and a fullback in). This is rb.md §11's year-2 leap screen (day-1 capital + late-season snap share 84.7% + competition departing) with the TD normalization thrown in free. Confidence is medium, not high, because the edge beyond the usage floor leans on situation improvement (evidence tier 2) on the league's lowest-stability team — if the offense stays bottom-3, he's merely fairly priced.
Bull case
- Locked, uncontested, elite-band usage at 22: 84.3% opportunity share, 26.4 weighted opps/g, 85% of inside-10 carries, 66.7% of third downs, 68.1% on-field trailing by 7+ — with all three 2025 backups gone, R1-pick-6 capital, and a coach on record planning McCaffrey usage. The volume floor at pick 12.4 is as safe as RB gets.
- The efficiency drag was mostly rented, not owned: hit at/behind the LOS on 54% of carries (2nd-worst) behind a 22nd-ranked run-blocking line on the NFL's worst offense — while leading his position tier in tackle-breaking (61 MTF, 5th; 3.1 YAC/att). Linderbaum + Miller + a Dennison wide-zone install attack precisely the yards-before-contact problem that isn't his (rb.md §5/§6).
- The TD normalization is free: he owned ~85% of a 20-carry inside-10 pie and still scored 10 TDs. Team red-zone volume moving from historically bad (45 RZ trips) to merely below-average roughly doubles his goal-line opportunity at a constant share — that's the gap between his RB16 PPG and the top-5 usage tier he already occupies, and the market is charging nothing for it.
Bear case
- A 5.5-win offense with a QB succession mid-year: 37-year-old Cousins handing to a rookie is the base case (team profile), the win total says Vegas expects bottom-3 again, and grinding volume on a team that trailed by 7+ half the time produced RB16 PPG last year. If the environment doesn't improve, pick 12.4 bought his 2025 season again — a real loss versus Jefferson/Lamb/Cook at the same turn.
- The back's own numbers weren't clean even after adjustment: −0.19 RYOE/att is blocking-adjusted and still below expectation; 31.8% success rate and a 1.9% breakaway rate are concern-band. If the "it was all the line" story is only half-true, 295 carries at ~3.8 YPC is an RB10-12 median — fine, not an edge — and this eval's efficiency step (4.05 YPC) never materializes.
- The pass-pro gate is not yet passed: 34.1 PFF pass-block grade, 14.1% pressure rate allowed, and a 47% two-minute share as a rookie — he lost passing downs to journeymen for stretches of 2025. A repeat under a new staff lets Heyward/Washington leak into exactly the downs that carry the PPR insulation, and on a trailing team that insulation *is* the floor.
Projection & comps
Built bottom-up from the LV team profile (built 2026-07-07): ~61 plays/g, ~26 rush att/g (~442 team rushes/17g), ~31 pass att/g (~527 attempts). Full PPR (assumed).
| Scenario | Games | Carries | Rush yds | Tgt | Rec | Rec yds | Total TD | PPR pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Floor (20th) | ~14.5 | 235 | 895 (3.8 YPC — OL battles bust, offense stays worst-5) | 60 | 46 | 300 | 7 | ~205 |
| Median (50th) | 16–17 | 295 (~67% of team carries) | 1,195 (4.05 YPC) | 78 | 60 | 405 | 9 (xTD-anchored, see below) | ~270 |
| Ceiling (80th) | 17 | 320 (~72% share, Kubiak SEA-style run volume) | 1,410 (4.4 YPC) | 90 | 71 | 510 | 13 | ~340 |
- Median mechanics: 295 carries (442 team × ~67%; he held 72.1% as a rookie and Washington Jr. is priced as change-of-pace only) + 78 targets (14.8% team target share — exactly his 2025 rate; his post-bye rate was 19.4%). 119.5 + 100.5 + 54 − 2 (fumble drag) ≈ 272.
- TD anchor (xTD, not 2025 actuals): 2025 rush TDs were 3 short + 2 long (64, 51 yds — pbp). His 17 inside-10 carries came from a team total of just 20 (pbp, 2026-07-07); LV managed only 45 red-zone trips (~2.6/g, worst-offense territory). Median assumes the offense improves from historically bad to bottom-third: ~35–40 team inside-10 rushes × ~80% share ≈ 28–32 i10 carries → ~7 rush xTD + ~2 receiving TD (his 5 rec TD on 73 targets at a −1.4 aDOT is regression fodder — kept at 2, not 5). Ceiling assumes league-average red-zone volume: ~11 rush + 2 rec.
- Games-played risk: medium — RB baseline. Mitigants: 17/17 games as a rookie, no injury designations (Sleeper, 2026-07-07), age 22, ~1,151 career touches (830 college — 750 car + 80 rec, Boise State 2022–24; 321 NFL) — far under the ~1,800 cliff. Watch item, not a flag: consecutive 397-touch (college 2024) and 321-touch seasons; 2025 stayed under the 370+ red-flag line.
- Comp seasons (verified from
data/stats/unless noted): Bijan Robinson 2024 (304 car/72 tgt, 342 PPR, 20.1 ppg) — the year-2 bellcow leap, ceiling shape; Alvin Kamara 2024 under Kubiak in NO (14 g, 228 car/89 tgt, 18.9 ppg) — what Kubiak's RB1 receiving role looks like in practice; Breece Hall 2024 (209 car/76 tgt, 241 PPR, 15.1 ppg) — three-down back on a bad offense, floor-to-median shape; Chase Brown 2025 (232 car/88 tgt, 283 PPR, 16.6 ppg) — receiving-heavy lead back, median shape; Najee Harris 2021 (381 touches on a bad offense, ~15.6 ppg PPR — approximate, from PFR-era memory, UNVERIFIED exact) — the volume-without-efficiency floor. - External projections: none —
data/projections/does not exist; no sanity-check source (noted per SKILL §4).
Usage profile (rb.md §2 table)
All 2025 REG-only, 17 games. Local nflverse tables pulled 2026-07-07; pbp-derived rates computed this run (nflverse pbp × cached participation.csv join, 942 joined scrimmage plays).
| Metric | 2025 | Band | Read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snap share | 77.9% season avg; 84.7% Wk 13–18; 90.6% on-field in one-score games | Elite | Raw average diluted by blowout benchings (Wk 7 @KC: 22 snaps); role share is elite and *rose* under the interim caller |
| Opportunity share (backfield) | 84.3% (339 of 402 RB carries+targets) | Elite | No 2025 RB competitor topped 34 opportunities; all three backups gone for 2026 |
| Weighted opps/g (car + 2.5×tgt) | 26.4 | Elite (≥25) | Top-3-shaped volume on the worst offense in football (LV EPA/play −0.192, 32nd) |
| High-value touches/g (tgt + i10 car) | 5.3 (4.29 tgt + 1.0 i10) | Good→Elite | Capped purely by team red-zone poverty — see next row |
| Inside-10 / inside-5 carry share | 85.0% (17/20) / 84.6% (11/13) | Elite share, tiny pie | The load-bearing stat of this eval: near-total goal-line ownership of a nearly empty pie. Team i10 rush volume is the single biggest 2026 swing factor |
| Third-down on-field share | 66.7% (142/213) | Good, near elite | Two-minute on-field only 47.0% — the §9 pass-pro gate visibly bit early (White/Laube took packages, Wk 1–6 beat reports); both are gone |
| Routes/g · route participation | Exact routes UNVERIFIED; on-field for 72.8% of charted dropbacks (27.1/g) | Elite proxy | Proxy includes pass-block snaps, so true route participation is somewhat lower |
| TPRR | ≥0.158 (73 tgt ÷ 461 on-field dropbacks — lower bound; true routes < pass snaps → true TPRR higher, est ~0.18–0.20) | Good (est) | 14.8% team target share; 19.4% post-bye and a 34.8% single-game high Wk 13 (Fantasy Points, Dec 2025) — the receiving role grew all season |
| Targets/g | 4.29 (73 in 17) | Good, near elite | aDOT −1.4 (pbp): screens/swings/checkdowns — exactly the designed RB usage the Kubiak/Shanahan tree schemes up (Kamara: 89 tgt in 14 g, 2024) |
| xFP / expected PPG | Provider xFP UNVERIFIED | — | Usage-based read: elite in every volume input; actual 14.4 PPG (RB16) vs RB11 in total points — the gap to his usage tier is the TD/efficiency environment |
Game-script read (rb.md §4): LV trailed by 7+ on a staggering 50.6% of scrimmage snaps (477/942) — and Jeanty stayed on the field for 68.1% of them (90.6% one-score, 78.1% leading by 7+). He does *not* leave the field when trailing; the profile is script-proof in both directions, which is exactly what a 5.5 win total (BetMGM/FanDuel, 2026-07-07 — team profile) demands. The win total caps the clock-killing carry ceiling, not the floor: his floor scenario is games-missed-driven, not script-driven.
Efficiency (rb.md §5) — separate the back from the line: YPC 3.67 and success rate 31.8% (concern) with −0.19 RYOE/att (NGS — below average, above the −0.3 concern line), EPA/rush −0.24, breakaway (15+) 1.9% (concern; only 5 runs). Against that: 61 MTF as a rusher (5th in NFL — PFF) ≈ 0.23/carry (elite band), 3.1 yards after contact/att (PFF; good band), first contact <0.7 yds past the LOS on average and hit at/behind the LOS on 54% of carries (2nd-worst) — behind a 22nd-ranked RBWR line, 16.9% TFL rate (SumerSports). The blocking-independent talent signals (MTF, YAC/att) are strong; the blocking-dependent ones (success rate, breakaway, RYOE) are poor. Per the evidence hierarchy this is a genuine open question — NGS RYOE already adjusts for blocking and still had him slightly under expectation — but the structural drag was real and is the specific thing the offseason addressed. One-season sample; no decline signal possible at age 22.
Gates (rb.md §8–9): Age 22 (DOB 2003-12-02 — Sleeper, 2026-07-07). Draft capital R1 pick 6 (2025); rookie contract through 2028 + 5th-year option — the opportunity is bought and paid for. Pass-pro gate: FAILED as a rookie — PFF pass-block grade 34.1, 12 pressures (3 sacks) allowed on 85 pass-block snaps (~14.1%, far above the 6% threshold; Review-Journal/PFF via web, 2025 season). Empirically the targets came anyway (73), but the two-minute leak (47%) was the cost. RB coach Deland McCullough rebuilt his technique in-season and beat coverage tracked visible improvement (Review-Journal, Oct–Nov 2025); 2026 camp two-minute-package reports are the earliest hard evidence either way.
Context (from data/team-profiles/LV.md, built 2026-07-07)
- Everything changed: Carroll/Kelly out; Klint Kubiak HC and play-caller (3 prior calling stops — not a first-timer), Cousins in at QB with No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza behind him (midseason handoff is the base case), team stability LOW — ranges widened accordingly.
- Play-caller fit is the bull thesis: Kubiak is Shanahan/Gary-Kubiak tree — run-tilted (negative PROE, 3rd in rush attempts at SEA 2025), wide-zone, under-center, motion/PA-heavy. He funnels offense through stars and has said the quiet part out loud: he wants to "maximize Jeanty's workload," keep him "on the field at all times, not just first and second down," and has explicitly likened the intended role to Christian McCaffrey's (Silver And Black Pride / raiders.com / Yahoo, May–June 2026). Jeanty at minicamp: "if I don't have to, I don't want to come off the field" (Heavy, June 2026).
- O-line: 2025 was the drag (22nd RBWR, 64 sacks, 54% of Jeanty's carries contacted at/behind LOS). 2026 adds Tyler Linderbaum (record 3/$81M center) and returns Kolton Miller from injury, with zone-scheme architect Rick Dennison coaching the line — but LG is an open three-way battle (possibly rookie R3 Zuhn) and RT is contested. Real upgrade, incomplete proof.
- Backfield competition got weaker: Mostert, White, and Laube (the 2025 committee remnants and third-down fill-ins) are all gone. Added: R4 Mike Washington Jr. (size-speed change-of-pace; beat reporting explicitly rejects a 50/50 or 60/40 framing — Silver And Black Pride, May 2026) and FB/flex Connor Heyward. Committee 2×2: high standalone + high contingent already realized — the league-winner quadrant, and nobody on the roster holds a claim to break it.
- Scheme fit (rb.md §6): wide zone wants one-cut vision/contact-balance runners — that is Jeanty's college and rookie profile (85% share of everything, elite MTF). No mismatch flag.
- Environment is the bear thesis: 5.5 win total, ~61 plays/g, a 37-year-old bridge QB, and a rookie QB handoff likely mid-season. Negative script is priced into this eval via the target-heavy median; it's the red-zone-trip volume that decides whether the TDs show up.
Tripwires (re-run this eval if any fire)
- Camp/preseason backfield leak: Washington Jr. or Heyward running the two-minute/third-down package or goal-line work with the 1s; any "1A/1B" or "hot hand" coach-speak replacing the McCaffrey-role framing.
- Veteran RB added with real guarantees (≥$4M/yr) or via trade — capital added is a claim; the current room has none.
- OL regression signals: Kolton Miller injury setback, or the LG battle resolving to a struggling rookie amid bad interior camp reports — the efficiency leg of the median depends on the line upgrade being real.
- QB chaos accelerates: Cousins injured/benched before Week 1 with Mendoza starting from the jump → re-run with compressed early-season passing volume (Jeanty holds best per the team profile's contingency line, but the range narrows downward).
- ADP moves inside the top 8 overall → the price captures the thesis; verdict flips toward HOLD.
Sources
data/stats/2025/— rushing.csv, receiving.csv, snap_counts.csv, ngs_rushing.csv, weekly.csv, participation.csv, pbp_summary.csv (nflverse via nflreadpy, pulled 2026-07-07): all volume, share, snap, NGS, and weekly-points figures- nflverse pbp 2025 via nflreadpy (derived this run, 2026-07-07), joined to cached participation.csv (942 scrimmage plays): inside-10/5 carries and team shares (17/20, 11/13), rush TD distances, success rate 31.8%, breakaway 1.9%, aDOT −1.4, score-state splits (68.1% trailing 7+ / 90.6% one-score / 78.1% leading 7+), third down 66.7%, two-minute 47.0%, dropback participation 72.8%, LV red-zone trips 45
data/adp/adp_ffc_2026-07-07.csv— Jeanty 12.4 (RB6); Achane 9.3, Cook 14.0, Henry 15.5 (FFC PPR mocks, 2026-07-07)data/raw/sleeper/players_2026-07-07.json— age 22, DOB 2003-12-02, Boise State, years_exp 1, no injury designation, depth chart #1data/team-profiles/LV.md(built 2026-07-07) — Kubiak tendencies/history, Cousins/Mendoza plan, OL moves and battles, win total 5.5, plays/pass-rate projections, backfield/target hierarchy, vacated touches- PFF via web (fetched 2026-07-07): 70.4 overall grade (34th/55 RB), 61 MTF as rusher (5th), 3.1 YAC/att, pass-block grade 34.1 (12 pressures/85 snaps)
- SumerSports player page (fetched 2026-07-07): success rate 32%, EPA/rush −0.24, 816 yards after contact, 12 goal-line carries, TFL 16.9%, explosive 6.02% (site definition)
- ESPN rookie-season evaluation (Jan 2026): first contact <0.7 yds past LOS; SI (Nov 2025): broken-tackle pace; Fantasy Points "Five Stats to Know" Wk 13 (Dec 2025): 19.4% post-bye target share, 18.8 wtd opp/g (their weighting), 34.8% Wk 13 target share; Scott Barrett/Fantasy Points (Sept 2025): 0.32 MTF/att early-season, #1
- Sharp/FTN via team profile (2025): contacted at/behind LOS on 54% of carries, 2nd-worst; ESPN win rates: LV 22nd RBWR, 17th PBWR
- 2026 offseason reporting: Silver And Black Pride (McCaffrey-workload Kubiak quotes, May 2026; Washington complementary-role framing, May 2026), raiders.com (backfield anchor piece + position breakdowns, June 2026), Yahoo/Heavy (minicamp quotes, June 2026), Review-Journal (pass-pro technique work, Oct–Nov 2025)
- NCAA/Boise State via web (fetched 2026-07-07): college career 750 carries + 80 receptions, 2022–24
- UNVERIFIED: exact routes/g and TPRR (bounds given), provider xFP, Najee Harris 2021 comp PPG (approximate), SumerSports "explosive %" definition