It’s been well-documented that Zamir White has a huge opportunity in front of him this month while Josh Jacobs is away from the team. However, White is struggling to make the most of it.
It’s not a good sign that Las Vegas has brought in a couple of running backs—Damien Williams and Darwin Thompson—during training camp. That probably means the coaching staff isn’t liking what they’re seeing from White, and he struggled to create yards against the 49ers.
The Georgia product had 43 yards on 13 carries which comes out to an average of just 3.3 yards per attempt and a lot of that was due to the offensive line. According to Pro Football Focus, he had 2.15 yards after contact per rush which ranked 55th out of 98 qualifying running backs over the weekend. For comparison’s sake, Josh Jacobs averaged 3.40 and was 11th-best in the metric during the 2022 regular season.
White also only forced one missed tackle on his 13 carries and while 34 other backs had the same amount, the biggest difference is he had the most attempts out of that group and just one other player even cracked double-digits.
Putting it simply, he needs to show more elusiveness this Saturday to build the case that he can take over as the team’s lead back.
Zamir is fool's gold IMO as a Jacobs replacement. Dude has zero lateral shiftiness. None. His vision reading blocks is pretty sus as well. He's a put your head down and run as fast as you can into the hole that's offered. And when he doesn't build steam, his power is grossly overrated. He's a poor man's version of Isaiah Pacheco. If the Raiders stubbornly keep giving him Jacobs-like volume, he will accumulate some decent numbers and maybe even break a long run or two, given the +OL and his own good burst and speed. But he will underwhelm in key RB metrics, and ultimately, he will either get hurt due to his lack of elusiveness and running style, or he'll be phased down as part of a broader RBBC.
This is all coming from someone who really wanted to love this dude when the Raiders drafted him. He's fast, he runs hard, and his nickname is Zeus. What's not to like? Pretty much everything else.