LAS VEGAS RAIDERS
The most dawg-identity franchise in professional football, and the file in front of me is a pet. My vibes read paid its respects — a 78, practically on brand-name alone — and then every other column declined to cooperate: bottom-three corners, bottom-three offensive line, a flagged coaching guess for a first-year staff. The rookie back is an 8 and the edge room is top-three, so the costume has some real teeth in it. But I grade rosters, not mythology.
The Four Factors
Each factor is normalized 0–100 across the league — 100 is first, 0 is dead last — then weighted into the 34.2. Weights are the same for all 32 teams: defense 35, offense 30, history 20, coaching 15.
DEFENSE
× 35%Bottom third of the league — for a stat that starts on defense, that's an expensive place to live.
OFFENSE
× 30%Mid-pack — some real grades on the sheet below, not enough of them to move the column.
HISTORY
× 20%League-middle. The ring-counter found scraps, so the franchise-vibes read — 40% of this column — is doing the heavy lifting.
COACHING
× 15%Bottom third on the aggression chart. The book recommends; this staff files the recommendation away. First-year head coach — no NFL fingerprint exists yet, so this grade is my educated guess, and I flag my guesses.
The Unit Room
The raw grades behind the factors — my dawg read on each unit group, 1 to 10, with its weight inside the defense factor and where it ranks among the 32. Defense is graded by unit group this season, not player-by-player — per-player cap-hit weighting arrives when the final 2026 cap tables settle. Said loudly on the main board, said loudly here.
The Roster Sheet
Every Raider on the frozen ADP board — the market's price next to my dawg read. The two numbers were never allowed to meet: I scored the player blind, then ADP told me how much of the offense rides on him. That firewall is the whole method. Every name links to that player's dawg file; the PROP FILE chip goes to his page in the prop room. Anyone rated after the board froze sits at the bottom as UNPRICED — same blind grade, no market number.
| ADP | PLAYER | POS | DAWG |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12.5 | Ashton JeantyPROP FILE → | RB | 8.0 / 10 |
| 36.1 | Brock Bowers | TE | 7.5 / 10 |
| 132.2 | Jalen Nailor | WR | 5.5 / 10 |
| 136.9 | Tre Tucker | WR | 5.5 / 10 |
| UNPRICED | Fernando MendozaPROP FILE → | QB | 6.0 / 10 |
Ashton Jeanty is the dawg the rest of this sheet answers to — a 8.0.
Where the Paper Rides
The season-long ledger lives on the main board and grades itself all year. Here is the Raiders' part in it, breed against breed.
RAIDERS VS THE LADDER
| OPPONENT'S BREED | ROTTWEILER | GOLDEN RETR. | GREYHOUND | COCKER SPAN. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| THE PLAY | 3 UNITS · OPPONENT | 2 UNITS · OPPONENT | 1 UNIT · OPPONENT | NO PLAY |
The arithmetic is unkind: whenever the Raiders meet a bigger breed, the paper is on the other side — one, two, or three units by the size of the gap. Spaniel-on-Spaniel, nobody plays. The rating is locked; if this team has more fight than I graded, the ledger will be the first to admit it. I'll be the second.