Las Vegas Raiders running back Ashton Jeanty had a tough season last year, but yesterday he showed out against Miami.
The Las Vegas Raiders talked a lot about building a winning culture this summer, which inspired plenty of eye rolls coming off a 3-14 season. But running back Ashton Jeanty walked the walk against the Miami Dolphins in the Raiders' 27-13 win on Sunday, as he was the engine that made the offense go.
Jeanty rushed for 102 yards on 23 carries, and he also caught six passes for 45 yards and two touchdowns. It was a dominant performance against a Dolphins defense that thought they had him stopped numerous times, and it spoke to what Jeanty said afterward about building a winning culture.
“The past is the past,” Jeanty said in a report from Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk. “We’re moving forward, and we’re not worried about what happened last year. This is a new team, new staff, and we’re building a new culture here. And that’s a culture that’s going to win football games.”
Jeanty spent nearly all of last year trying to find holes that weren’t there behind a wretched offensive line, but yesterday was very different. He found plenty of interior running lanes to carve out a path, and when those lanes closed up, he plowed through the Miami defense to create a path of his own.
It was obvious throughout the game that the Raiders were trying to play by creating a physical presence, and that meant the running game. The play calling was conservative for most of the game, which was hardly surprising given the underwhelming receiver group and the loss of tight end Brock Bowers to knee surgery after he sat out much of last year.
The Dolphins were able to counter early with plenty of yardage, but that changed in the second half as the Raiders' defense rose up and provided a physical presence of its own. That included five sacks, with defensive end Maxx Crosby and linebacker Kwity Paye getting 1.5 sacks each.
The Raiders also unleashed rookie running back Mike Washington Jr., who’s expected to be Jeanty’s counterpart this season. Washington proceeded to show why Klint Kubiak “pounded the table” to get the running back in the draft, as he showed his big-play ability by bouncing runs outside during a drive in which he was featured to give Jeanty a breather.
It’s important to remember that the Dolphins are a bad team that mirrored what the Raiders looked like last year, but for one game, Jeanty’s talk about building a winning culture wasn’t just talk.
