During the 2024 season, in his second year with the Las Vegas Raiders, Receiver Jakobi Meyers broke through the thousand yard receiving barrier for the first time in his career. He reached the coveted milestone with less than desirable quarterback play at WR2 for more than half of the season.
The Wolfpack Alumni was stuck behind WR1 Davante Adams for the first 11 games of the season, who siphoned more than 15% of the receiver rooms targets. Now with Adams gone, Meyers will have more targets to work with in a feasible, but still to be named, WR1 position.
He also has Geno Smith throwing his the ball this year instead of the duo Aiden O’Connell and Gardner Minshew; the latter of which is not even on the Raiders team any more having left for the Kansas City Chiefs. The former becoming the back-up to Smith.
Minshew and O'Connel combined for a low 17 touchdown passes across the season, and were sacked a total of 39 times, neither of which being preferable for the Wolpack Alumn who thrives in short routes. When he got out quick his quarterback was down on the turf quicker, or had turned to a different receiver by then.
With Geno Smith coming in, Meyers has a much higher chance to explode on the gridiron. Smith's accuracy is five percent higher over hundreds of throws than Meyers previous leaders, and has most importantly started for an NFL team for multiple full seasons.
He was sacked 50 times in 2024, one more than the full Raiders QB room, so that may remain an issue but his pro's for Meyer's specifically outweigh that con.
Meyers lacked a quarterback who had more than just plug-and-play off the bench ability like the second year O'Connell or career journeyman Minshew. Smith brings him the veteran sight to find him when he is open and stay up in time to get him the ball.
The Raiders will have a much better rushing game after having drafted star running back Ashton Jeanty. This should not impact Meyer's receiving game all too much as the running back receiving yards will be centralized into Jeanty instead of spread out across multiple cariers.
With hands that did not drop the ball once last year and an upwards trajectory across the past few years, Jakobi Meyers is set to continue making his school proud. The NC State alumni has many good things ahead of him, but only time will tell whether he truly breaks out or not.
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