Why the Raiders Are Most Improved Team in the NFL

Brooke Cersosimo of NFL.com believes the Raiders was the one team that did not make the playoffs last season that made the biggest leap this offseason.

"The four-win Raiders entered this offseason with a long to-do list. Perhaps their biggest move was hiring Pete Carroll, who previously revived a franchise and turned it into a perennial winner," Cersosimo said.

"Reuniting with his former coach to take care of "unfinished business, "Geno Smith is an upgrade over both Aidan O'Connell and Gardner Minshew. Also, the Raiders landed one of the top players in this year's draft in running back Ashton Jeanty."

Cersosimo noted that the Raiders filled out their skill positions nicely via the NFL Draft and still have Brock Bowers. Las Vegas also has Jakobi Meyers, who has looked solid so far in training camp. The Raiders should be more explosive on offense, although it remains to be seen by how much.

"They added young talent to the WR corps in second-rounder Jack Bech and fourth-rounder Dont'e Thornton. Smith should have no shortage options with this young group, led by all-world tight end Brock Bowers," Cersosimo said.

"At least on paper, this looks far from the offense that ranked 29th in scoring and 27th in yards a year ago.  The defense looks much improved, too. They signed Germaine Pratt, Elandon Roberts, Jeremy Chinn, and Eric Stokes in free agency."

After completing the first week of training camp, Carroll gave an update on the progress of the Raiders' rookies. It is still early, but

"Right now, we had three terrific days of practice. We really did. I mean, each one of them was everybody did everything they could, then we challenged them to come back and do it again, and this is the third day to finish this first rhythm of it, and this was probably our best practice," Carroll said.

"So, the focus, the intensity, and working to try to maximize these opportunities, because we're still in a controlled mode, an OTA kind of mode right now. I love what we've done in three days."

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