Will Raiders’ Biggest Strength Ever Lead to Wins?

The Raiders are not expected to have a great season, as ESPN’s FPI projects Las Vegas as 1 of the 5 worst teams in the NFL. As a result, the strength of the Raiders’ roster is not as good as that of other NFL teams. 

ESPN provided best and worst-case scenarios for each NFL team. The Raiders have a ceiling low enough to bang your head against. As part of the breakdown, ESPN named each team’s biggest strength. The Raiders’ strongest area is tight end. 

Brock Bowers and Michael Mayer should create one of the best tight end rooms in the NFL. Bowers could have a monster season under Klint Kubiak, and Mayer will be a key cog as the Raiders intend to use plenty of two tight end sets. 

But does having the best tight end room in the NFL matter? Tight end is one of the least valuable positions in the NFL. According to Spotrac, George Kittle’s $19.1 million average salary is the 149th highest in the league. It is the only offensive or defensive position that doesn’t have a player making $20 million per year on average. 

Bowers will certainly change that when he signs his next contract. But either way, the tight end position is not where an NFL team would choose to be strongest. In fact, no other team in the NFL had tight end listed as its biggest strength.  

It rehashes the 2024 NFL draft, where the Raiders elected to use a first-round pick on Bowers, just one season after choosing Mayer in the second round. That poor allocation of draft assets has left the Raiders barren in other, more valuable, positions. 

That the Raiders used their first-round pick in 2025 on a running back, another position NFL teams don’t value highly, just exacerbated the problems at premium positions. 

Fortunately the 2026 draft presented the opportunity for the Raiders to choose Fernando Mendoza. Quarterback is the most valuable position – 19 quarterbacks have a higher average salary than Kittle. If Mendoza can turn into the Raiders’ biggest strength, the wins will start piling up.

If the Raiders are going to produce a successful rebuild, the tight ends will need to be surpassed by a few other position groups. Otherwise, Bowers may be setting records while the Raiders stumble around the bottom of the AFC.