NFL Breakout Candidates 2024: Raiders RB Zamir White

Drafted in the middle of the fourth round in 2022, it always felt like the Las Vegas Raiders looked at former Georgia Bulldogs RB Zamir White as a backup plan. A lot of that depended on their contract negotiations to keep Josh Jacobs in Las Vegas, and with him now in Green Bay, people are paying White more attention.

In college, Zamir White was the lesser-discussed running back on his own team. James Cook came with higher name recognition due to his brother being a perennial All-Pro for the Vikings at the time. White did, however, spearhead the attack for the back-to-back national champs, rushing for 1635 yards and 22 TDs combined, while averaging an impressive 5.4 yards per carry in both seasons.

Leaving Athens as a junior, he did get selected earlier than some predicted. That said, he was quickly buried on the depth chart with the 2022 rushing king in Jacobs, Ameer Abdullah as the primary third-down back and even Brandon Bolden being brought over from New England.

As a rookie, White only gained 70 yards on 17 total opportunities. Through week 13, White had only touched the ball 25 times for less than 100 yards and no touchdowns.

Over the final four weeks as the starter in Vegas however, with Jacobs missing time due to a quad bruise, the then-rookie carried the ball 84 times for 397 yards (4.73 yards per) and a score. That, along with catching nine of 13 targets his way for another 60 yards.

Why Raiders RB Zamir White could break out in the 2024 NFL season

With Jacobs in Green Bay and former Viking Alexander Mattison as the only substantial name to join the Raiders this offseason, White could be in store for a season where he’s shouldering a heavy workload.

Looking at where Zamir White excels in terms of the run scheme, even at Georgia, he's a highly capable zone runner. He also understood the rhythmic aspects and ideas behind setting up gap schemes which may involve the creation of additional gaps by utilizing pulling blockers.

You like the way he keeps his shoulders square to the line of scrimmage on vertical concepts, such as duo, not allowing linebackers to get to one side of double-teams, so they can take him on in the hole. And he utilizes a little one-two-step with a shoulder fake at times to make guys miss in that condensed space if they do scrape over.

When he’s running inside or split zone and he works against something like an over front (where the backside B-gap is uncovered and the linebacker over there turns his pads down the line immediately), he’ll take that cutback. If he does want to hit front side, he often dips inside as the linebacker is already down around the line of scrimmage, creating a softer angle so he can rip through that defender’s shoulder as he’s plowing forward.

When he’s going downhill, Zamir White gets a head of steam and has no hesitation approaching contact. White can veer off either foot and point the other toe to work around traffic and bounce runs outside, paired with the peripheral vision to spot a wide receiver or detached tight-end in a condensed split pinning his (apex) defender inside.

He’s not necessarily going to win the corner on contain defenders who stay square initially, rather than leveraging themselves outside, or outrace a safety dropped down towards the sideline. That said, White is a diligent runner between the tackles with excellent maturity and determination.

White’s 3.21 yards after contact on average ranked ninth among the 49 total NFL running backs with 100+ carries last season. Looking at the Next Gen Stats database, his 0.33 average rushing yards over expected slot him right between first-team All-Pros from the two years prior in Saquon Barkley and Jonathan Taylor.

Zamir White isn’t a dynamic make-you-miss type of runner, where he sort of freezes a little bit too much in those true one-on-one situations in the open field, instead of just putting a move on guys to get by/around them. Becoming a little more decisive and adding a couple more tools in that regard would be helpful for him this offseason.

He does well to protect the ball when there are arms swinging at him and pulling his knees up, to slide off defenders trying to wrap him up low. And what I do really like is that he’s that mature decision-maker and team player who pulls through on fake handoffs in a way that buys his quarterback a little extra time.

His deployment in the passing game certainly could be expanded upon or we at least have very little to evaluate him based on. Through three years at Georgia, he only caught 17 total passes and while he did haul in a few check-downs as a rookie, he didn’t even see a single target of 10+ air yards.

In the screen game, Zamir White is deceptive releasing out, not prematurely tipping off defenses, and he excels at using jump-stops and sliding inside of his linemen leading the way. It’s always tough to trust Pro Football Focus’ grading when it comes to things that take a schooled eye to truly evaluate fairly. However, a 46.4 pass-blocking grade on the surface is underwhelming.

With that being said, there were only 18 total such snaps to evaluate him based on, and based on my draft prep, I thought he had the size and mindset to anchor down against charging blitzers.

There’s a lot of uncertainty around the Raiders as a franchise, particularly on the offensive side of the ball. Antonio Pierce was upgraded from interim to full-time head coach after going 5-4 last season, Luke Getsy was brought over as offensive coordinator following a few underwhelming years in Chicago and they have a QB battle between Aidan O’Connell and Gardner Minshew.

Outside of that, I’d say they offer one of the more intriguing collections of pass-catchers and they’ve re-constructed the O-line in a way that should make them an average unit.

I’m much less concerned about Getsy’s ability to orchestrate a functioning run game, considering the Bears ranked fifth in EPA per rush over his time calling plays there. And there should be plenty of opportunities on the ground, as Chicago finished first (56.2%) and second (48.7%) respectively in run play rate, while the Raiders ran the ball an average of 25.9 times per game under Pierce.

Now, in terms of competition, the two RBs left on the roster from last year combined for just 19 total carries and Ameer Abdullah was the only one to catch any passes for that group. Former Viking Alexander Mattison could theoretically be the starter when week one rolls around, but his elusive rating dropped off 33.3 points from 2022 to ’23 and he dropped six balls.

The only other player they added to that room for seventh-round pick Dylan Laube out of New Hampshire, who could battle Abdullah as a passing down specialist, since he was the best pass-catcher in this past RB class. Yet, I would argue in terms of handling the load as a rusher, Zamir White has a pretty clear path to running the ball 200+ times potentially, and as they figure out their quarterback situation, he could be the steady drumbeat for this attack.