What's the fantasy football outlook in Las Vegas?

In the Yahoo Fantasy Football Forecast, analysts Andy Behrens and Matt Harmon examine the refreshed Raiders offense including what to expect from Davante Adams and Josh Jacobs.

Video Transcript

ANDY BEHRENS: The next one for me is the Las Vegas Raiders. And we have to start by reminding people that last year was just an absolute [BLEEP] storm for the Raiders, right?

MATT HARMON: Seriously, yeah.

ANDY BEHRENS: Like, all the things went wrong. It's wild they made the postseason. And then they gave the Bengals all they could handle in the postseason. They are-- you mentioned earlier the notion of replacing Jalen Reagor with AJ Brown and that magnitude of upgrade. Well, the Raiders are replacing Zay Jones with Davante Adams, which is pretty good. Ostensibly, pretty decent upgrade.

What is this team's level of commitment to Josh Jacobs? I actually find that really interesting. Like, Jacobs has gained 1,200 scrimmage yards every year of his career. If you look at-- with the exception of the year where he basically played through injury in his second season, he was a huge missed tackle guy as a rookie, huge missed tackle guy last year. Like, he's right there with Nick Chubb and Javonte Williams in terms of missed tackles forced last season.

But I feel like Josh Jacobs has taught me that people only situationally care about advanced stats in football. Because they love to tell you how many missed tackles Javonte Williams forced and they will never talk to you about Josh Jacobs being good. He's like secretly good, even though he's like right there on the list with the guy. Anyway.

But I say all these nice things about Josh Jacobs, and the team didn't even pick up his fifth year. And then they draft Zamir White. So like what's the plan there? Is that already underway? Like, is Josh Jacobs in a competition for touches? He might be. That's kind of wild to me.

And oh, yeah, they have a new head coach. And it's Josh McDaniels, who I did not think would ever be a head coach again, right? Like, after passing on a job that he had accepted. He brings Lombardi with him. It's just, there's a lot of new stuff here. But the new stuff is really exciting.

People have heard me talk already about Derek Carr and the setup for Derek Carr. I can't-- it's hard to believe how productive he was and how disrespected he was last year. Like that guy averaged over 280 passing yards a game throwing to nobody. I mean, they had the rug situation, Waller was out, everybody was out. It was just Carr and Renfrow. And he made something of Josh Jacobs as a receiver. That was interesting.

So there's just, there's a lot of unknowns here. And it is clearly a team that is going for it over the next two or three years, during this, for whatever period Carr and Adams are together, they're going for it in just an impossible division.

MATT HARMON: I'm kicking myself, because I'm pretty sure like when we got the email from producer John being like, you've got to have five teams, I was like, oh, the Raiders are definitely on my five. And they're not. I left them off here. 32 teams, I forget about this one.

But yeah, no, Andy, you know how there's like, there's like three or four classic tropes that everybody on Fantasy Twitter who's like desperate for engagement like throws out there like at least twice a week? One of which is this keeps happening, it's like none of you care, or whatever. It's like Josh Jacobs has had three 1,200-plus yards from scrimmage seasons, and it's like none of you really care.

And I'm like, yeah, the chief among them is that the Raiders don't care. They decline to state their option. It's like, it's so strange. And then too, like Davante Adams, I think he's an interesting player to talk about. Because I think he is, no question, no doubt about it, the best receiver in the league right now. He's been on an unparalleled run from an individual standpoint too. Anybody that even hints at the idea that he's a product of Aaron Rodgers is just admitting they don't watch the games, right, like clearly saying that.

But obviously, there's a downgrade going from-- and from a pure statistical perspective, he's probably not going to do what he did with the Packers because there's a slight downgrade from Aaron Rodgers to Derek Carr. But how much of a downgrade, really? It's like, it's not as if we're talking about Tyreek Hill going from Patrick Mahomes to Tua. And I'm not saying that to be disrespectful to Tua.

But like, I think we know for sure Derek Carr is a top 12, top 10-ish quarterback in the league. Like it's not as if he's-- he's going to an above average quarterback right now. So that could still lead me to have Davante Adams as a top five, like right around number five in terms of rankings, like, and still be very in on him. Because I think there's a chance this offense could be really good.

The offensive line certainly could have been tweaked a little more. But Hunter Renfrow is damn good as a slot receiver, you know. Darren Waller is a really good tight end. They've got a three-headed monster there, from a receiving standpoint, that can do a lot of damage.

So I do find it-- I'm with you, I find this team very, very interesting.