Pete Carroll’s Raiders, sitting at 2-4, should feel bad, sure, but what does it say when the trade calls start coming in not for draft picks, but for 2 of the few players who actually know how to find the end zone? The dark heart of this 2025 debacle isn’t their middling 17.2 total points per game; it’s the fact that Geno Smith has gifted opposing defenses 10 INTs through 6 weeks.

The first tremor hit yesterday morning: “a handful of teams have called the #Raiders about RB Raheem Mostert.” This is the same Mostert who led the entire league in 2023 with 21 total TDs. While his 2025 usage has been light (just 16 carries for 80 yds), sending away him would signal that HC Pete Carroll’s much-hyped “culture change” has already dissolved into a fire sale.

The 33-year-old joined the Raiders on a one-year deal after leaving Miami, carrying just a $1.6 million cap hit for 2025, a bargain that makes him a tempting trade piece. Sure, he’s no longer in his prime, but the man can still play. Few running backs can say they’ve left a postseason mark like his 220 rushing yards and four touchdowns in the 2019 NFC title game with the 49ers. And he didn’t fade after that:

In 2023, he crossed 1,000 rushing yards and led the league with 21 total touchdowns, showing age hasn’t slowed him down. Yet in Las Vegas, he’s barely seeing the field, with only 16 carries in three games. So if a contender comes calling with a Day 3 pick, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the Raiders let him go.

Also, the fact is, when you can’t get a reliable 4.0 yds per rush overall, you need vets like Mostert. However, as he is sitting behind Ashton Jeanty on the depth chart, trade calls might happen. But he isn’t the only player in the conversation.

The noise around wideout Jakobi Meyers has reached a painful crescendo. It all came to a head at Wednesday’s practice when KSNV News 3 Las Vegas’ Alexa Belcastro noted, “Jakobi Meyers was on the field but not in uniform at Raiders practice today. No word yet if it’s rest, injury management, or otherwise..comes amid ongoing trade chatter around the veteran wideout. #Raiders.”

While ESPN quickly confirmed it was a knee/toe injury sidelining him, the optics are terrible, especially since this is the same player who asked for a trade earlier this year.

The unbearable weight of undrafted talent

Meyers, an incredible undrafted success story, put up 1,027 receiving yards last season. He was supposed to be the foundational partner to the other star WRs, yet in a bizarre twist of fate, he’s been largely invisible over the last 6 contests, posting a mere 329 receiving yards on 29 receptions.

Most unsettling of all, despite ranking first on the team in targets (43), the WR has precisely 0 touchdowns in 2025. It’s hard to imagine a more potent symbol of offensive stagnation. The team’s overall passing attack is stuck below 7.0 yds per attempt.

In fact, the QB’s 10 INTs versus just 7 TDs is a catastrophic ratio, and when you’re losing the ball like that, which is directly fueling the opponents’ scoring rate of 24.8 PPG, you become desperate. That desperation, that unbearable knowledge that the future is bleak, is what forces a coach to greenlight the “double move”.

The Raiders have few young players to truly excite Raider Nation beyond the promise of rookie RB Ashton Jeanty. If both Mostert and Meyers are gone by the deadline, it will feel like the closing of a door, leaving nothing but the hollow echo of a locker room half-empty.