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. Names that link go to that player's file in the prop room; the rest don't have one yet.
| ADP | PLAYER | POS | DAWG |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12.5 | Ashton JeantyFILE → | 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 |
Ashton Jeanty is the dawg the rest of this sheet answers to — a 8.0. No quarterback is priced on this team's frozen board at all — the market declined to file one. I grade what's in front of me.
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.