There are no shortage of pundits out there who believe the Las Vegas Raiders will not make the playoffs in 2024, but could they actually take a step back and finish with a worse record than they did in 2023?
According to ESPN’s Football Power Index, that’s exactly what is expected to happen to Las Vegas this coming season. The FPI projects the Raiders to finish with the No. 8 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, five spots higher than where they picked in 2024 after finishing with an 8-9 record.
That’s also the second-highest pick of AFC West teams, with only the Denver Broncos (No. 3) having a higher one. For reference, the team that owned the No. 8 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, the Atlanta Falcons, finished with a 7-10 mark.
The FPI, which does 10,000 simulations of the 2024 season to come up with that spot, also has the Raiders with a 3.56% chance to have the No. 1 overall pick, a 25.3% to earn a top-five pick and a 52.1% chance to hold a top-10 pick.
That draft spot would be depressing for multiple reasons. For starters, it means that not only did the Raiders miss the playoffs, they had a worse season than the year before.
Adding to that, with the Raiders almost certainly in the market for a quarterback after what would be another losing season, Las Vegas may find itself out of the range for one of the top quarterbacks in the 2025 class, barring a trade up.
All that said, I think the Raiders do better than the FPI projection.
Granted, the quarterback situation is a major question mark, but those quarterbacks also have excellent weapons to throw to and both nearly led their respective teams to the playoffs in 2023. And, Las Vegas will have one of the better defenses in the NFL, so simply average quarterback play might be enough to get to the postseason.
At the very least, the Raiders should be in contention for a playoff spot going into the last weeks of the season, but they do have a decent shot to make the playoffs, no matter what the computer says.