Las Vegas Raiders Hidden Gems: 3 Secret Superstars on the 2025 roster

Pete Carroll has chosen the Raiders as his next reclamation project, and here are three Secret Superstars who can help return the Silver and Black to past glory.

Whether they’ve been located in Oakland or Las Vegas over the last 20 years, it’s safe to say that with the hires of (in reverse order) Josh McDaniels, Jon Gruden, Jack Del Rio, and Tom Cable, the Raiders have relied on more head coaches than not who aren’t really known for their warm and fuzzy TED talks.

In 2024, Antonio Pierce tried his level best to establish a culture with whatever McDaniels hadn’t destroyed as his predecessor, but the organization realized that to really cement the idea of a positive governing philosophy, it was time to back up the Brinks truck for a coach who has proven over and over to be completely conversant in those ideas.

Enter Pete Carroll after his year away from the NFL, following the mutually-agreed-upon breakup with the Seattle Seahawks.

As a Seattle resident, and someone who was first credentialed to cover the Seahawks in 2010 (Carroll’s first year there), I can attest that Carroll’s “Win Forever” and “Always ComPETE” stuff is far more than bumper sticker fodder. The man believes it all, and he’s quite adept at getting even the biggest skeptics to buy in, as well. You don’t back into Carroll’s record of success in the NCAA and the NFL in the new millennium by accident.

Carroll comes armed with quarterback Geno Smith, who has said that he owes Carroll the positive sides of his own NFL career based on Carroll’s belief in him when both men were in the Emerald City. Smith maybe the most talented quarterback this franchise has seen since either Carson Palmer or Rich Gannon, and when you have a coach and a quarterback who are already aligned as Carroll and Smith are, that can only help things. Of course, it’s not a net negative that they can chop it up with part-owner Tom Brady from time to time.

Still, there’s a lot of building and rebuilding to be done for an organization that went 4-13 in 2024, and hasn’t won a playoff game since the 2002 season. If Carroll is to make the Raiders his next successful reclamation project, he’ll need more than just the team’s superstars to make that happen.

In the continuation of our “Hidden Gems” series, we look at three underrated players for these Raiders — one veteran, one free-agent signing, and one draft pick.

Underrated Veteran: DL Adam Butler

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While defensive lines are generally defined in the minds of the public by superstar quarterback disruptors, there are always those guys on great lines who glue the whole thing together with their efforts, even if those efforts fly under the radar. Adam Butler has been one such player since his days with the New England Patriots, the team that signed him as an undrafted free agent out of Vanderbilt in 2017.

I’ve been on the “Adam Butler is underrated” train for a long time, and it’s good to see that the veteran is still bringing it at a high level. Last season for the Raiders — the team that signed him to a one-year contract in 2023, and another in 2024 — Butler more than proved his worth. Only Maxx Crosby (eight) had more sacks than Butler’s six, which tied him with K’Lavon Chaisson for second. And only Crosby and Tyree Wilson had more total pressures than Butler’s 31 — which made Butler the team’s most productive interior defensive lineman from a pass-rush perspective. Given his eight tackles for loss and 32 stops (only linebacker Robert Spillane had more for the Raiders last season), you knew that Butler was finding ways to get it done against the run, as well.

“Yeah, I felt I had a phenomenal season,” Butler said on June 11. “I think, of course, it could have been better in a lot of different ways. And that’s one of my goals this year, is just to eliminate the close calls. There’s so many other opportunities when you really break down the tape where maybe I was this close to making a play, or maybe I didn’t quite finish. And I’m trying to just eliminate that from my game and just focus on the little details.”

The Raiders rewarded Butler for his attention to the little details with a new contract this spring that gives him $16.5 million with $8 million guaranteed over the next three years. Butler’s importance to the line was especially apparent when Christian Wilkins went down for the remainder of the season after a Week 5 foot injury, and it should be fun to see those two gentlemen battling centers and guards in 2025 and beyond.

Underrated Free-Agent Signing: LB Elandon Roberts

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The Raiders lost do-it-all linebacker Robert Spillane to the New England Patriots in free agency, and in an attempt to bolster the position(s) with new blood, the team assembled a group of ‘backers with Devin White, Germaine Pratt, and Elandon Roberts as the mainstays. Of the three, Roberts may be the most productive in his new home, and the one-year, $3.01 million deal with $2.5 million guaranteed he signed could be a real bargain.

Last season for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Roberts collected one sack, 13 total pressures, 44 solo tackles, six tackles for loss, one forced fumble, and 31 stops. He’s not necessarily an asset in coverage — in 2024, he allowed 17 catches on 23 targets for 244 yards, 176 yards after the catch, and an opponent passer rating of 107.9.

But the Raiders need a green-dot guy in the middle of their defense, and Roberts appears to be the one to take that over.

“E-Rob would joke about, it seems like while I’ve never coached him, it seems like I coached him,” defensive coordinator Patrick Graham said of Roberts on June 4. “He said, ‘Pat, you’ve never coached me, but it seems like you coached me,’ because we have so many mutual connections in the NFL. So, that’s been really positive. That’s been really positive.

“I love talking football with him. We could sit over there, on the sideline, can’t say the office, [because of NFL] rules. But it’s been great just talking football with him. And that position is critical for me to be able to speak to him. I don’t want him to be coach[ing], but for us to have a great understanding, because usually that’s the spot with the green dot.”

At age 31, and coming into his 10th NFL season, Roberts may not be the pure athlete he once was. But he’s still got enough juice to match the acumen he’s developed, and to make a credible difference to a defense in transition.

Underrated Draft Pick: WR Dont’e Thornton Jr.

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Al Davis was known for all kinds of things. One of the most prominent points of Davis’ legacy was his adherence to the vertical passing game, which Davis picked up from Sid Gillman in the early 1960s, and expanded upon from there. This went all the way back to guys like Art Powell, Clem Daniels, and Warren Wells singing defenses on deep plays in the American Football League days, through the Cliff Branch era of the 1970s and 1980s, and up to the modern day, when Jakobi Myers can catch 10 passes of 20 or more air yards on 21 targets for 269 yards and a touchdown, as he did in 2024.

With the addition of Geno Smith as one of the NFL’s best pure deep throwers, there was more of a need for speed in Carroll’s and general manager John Spytek’s draft philosophy. Ergo, the selections of TCU’s Jack Bech with the 58th overall pick in the second round of the 2025 draft…

…and Tennessee’s Dont’e Thornton Jr. with the 108th overall pick in the fourth round.

In 2024, the 2023 transfer from Oregon caught seven passes of 20 or more air yards on 10 targets for 376 yards and three touchdowns. Keep in mind that the Vols had a passing game last season in which Nico Iamaleava and Gaston Moore combined for just 18 deep completions all season, and it’s pretty easy to factor in more explosive plays with Smith throwing the ball.

Tape tells you that Thornton is a big ball-winner at 6’5 and about 220 pounds on the field, and the stuff he did at the scouting combine (let’s start with the 4.3-second 40-yard dash and the 1.51-second 10-yard split) also shows up where and when it matters most. At his best, Thornton presents a combination of size and speed that is very tough to cover, and while there are aspects of his game that need development, he’s well aware of that.

“I’d say my intermediate and medium route-running,” Thornton said in his post-draft press conference, when asked about his personal points of improvement. “With my past two years, I haven’t really had the opportunity to really display that as much, so just getting back in the flow of doing that. Obviously, that was the number one thing everyone has been saying.”

Fair point, but of the five catches Thornton had last season on throws of 10-19 air yards, three were touchdowns, and he averaged 32.0 yards per reception. So this really is a case of focusing on what a guy can do, and accentuating it with refinement in all the other things.

(All advanced metrics courtesy of Pro Football Focus and Sports Info Solutions).