Raiders RB Zamir White named breakout candidate ahead of 2024 season

The Raiders couldn’t be more excited about Zamir White going into the 2024 season. The former fourth-round pick from Georgia was fantastic in the final month of the season and now he’ll get the first chance to replace Josh Jacobs as the team’s featured back.

In a recent article by Aaron Schatz of ESPN, he wrote about 20 young breakout candidates ahead of the 2024 season. That list included White, who was one of two running backs to make the list. Here is a snippet of what the site had to say about White going into his third season:

White had 5.4 yards per carry for the Georgia in 2021 with 11 touchdowns on 160 carries. He’s a naturally powerful runner, very physical with a strong bottom half. He also has above-average vision coming through the hole, can jump-cut to avoid tackles or run right through them.

So far, White’s NFL performance hasn’t matched what we saw in college, but the sample size is still small. He started the last four games of the 2023 season and totaled 451 yards on 104 carries with a single touchdown.

He had an mid-tier VOA (value over average) but takes a big hit in DVOA and DYAR for opponent adjustments because he faced a lot of easy run defenses. Those four starts all came against teams ranked 21st or lower in run defense DVOA.

Schatz is right that the sample size is very small for White and it’s unclear what the expectations should be for him in 2024. But there is certainly a lot of optimism and hype surrounding him going into the year. If that comes to fruition, the Raiders could be much better on offense this season than anyone anticipates.