Before the Las Vegas Raiders took running back Ashton Jeanty with the No. 6 pick in the NFL draft this year, Jeanty had a good feeling he was headed to the Raiders.
During an appearance on The St. Brown podcast, Jeanty pointed to multiple signs that led him to believe the Raiders were planning to take him. Though he notes mock drafts aren't "real," he saw numerous analysts predicting the Raiders would take him. Along with that, he heard from Las Vegas star Maxx Crosby shortly before the draft.
The real telling sign for Jeanty, however, turned out to be a call from Raiders coach Pete Carroll and running backs coach Deland McCullough, who called him about a week before the draft to question him about his fumbles in college at Boise State.
"I feel like I really knew," Jeanty said. "There was a few different signs. Mock drafts are obviously fake, but every mock draft was like Raiders. ... Then Maxx Crosby hit me the day before. Pete Carroll and coach McCullough, the running back coach, they called me probably like a week before talking about my fumbles because I had a lot of fumbles in college. I had 11 career fumbles. They were like, 'Hey man, is this something we can fix?' Kind of questioning me. I'm like, 'Hell yeah I can fix that.' After that call I was like, 'O.K. If I'm on the board at six, I think they're coming to get me for sure."
There were certainly plenty linking Jeanty to the Raiders before the draft. In addition, eyebrows were raised when Raiders general manager Jon Spytek hilariously shared that his son said he would leave the family if he didn't pick Jeanty, and Carroll notably cautioned Spytek from answering a question about Jeanty during the draft process.
Still, there were others predicting that the Raiders would fill another area of need, especially since this year's draft boasted a deep running back class. Instead, Jeanty's intuition was correct, and the call from Carroll and McCullough proved to be the greatest sign.
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