With the start of the 2025 NFL regular season less than a week away, predictions on—well, everything—are naturally everywhere right now. And there's one out there right now that the Los Angeles Chargers and Omarion Hampton will love and the Las Vegas Raiders and Ashton Jeanty will hate.
And Bolts fans wouldn't want it any other way.
ESPN's Dan Graziano recently took the time to offer up one bold prediction for each of the 32 teams, and his pick for the Chargers was first-year running back Omarion Hampton winning Offensive Rookie of the Year. Actually, he said, "Don't be surprised if running back Omarion Hampton wins Offensive Rookie of the Year," but it's close enough.
Here was Graziano's assessment:
"The Chargers really like veteran running back Najee Harris. They gave him $5.25 million guaranteed in free agency and anticipated him being their starting running back, even after drafting Hampton in the first round. But Harris suffered an unfortunate eye injury in July that cost him a ton of training camp practice time. In the meantime, my understanding is that Hampton emerged quickly.
"Harris should still be in the mix once he's back and fully healthy, and that could well be in time for Week 1. But despite what offensive coordinator Greg Roman has been saying about the backs splitting snaps, I think Hampton is in line for a major role as the starter for the Chargers. And if he's what they thought he could be when they spent that first-round pick on him, he might just take the starter's job right away and never look back."
Yeah, that pretty much covers it.
Omarion Hampton predicted to win Offensive Rookie of the Year over Ashton Jeanty
The addition of Najee Harris was undoubtedly a strong move for the Bolts, as the fifth-year pro surpassed the 1,000-yard mark in each of his four seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers. And while there was concern that he would start the year on injured reserve following that fireworks mishap on July 4, the 27-year-old was included on the Chargers' initial 53-man roster and could very well take the field when Los Angeles opens the regular season on Friday in Brazil against the Kansas City Chiefs.
But with Harris out during training camp, Hampton, who rushed for 3,164 yards and 30 touchdowns over his final two seasons at North Carolina, got the chance to take more first-team reps than expected and hasn't disappointed.
He only got four rushing attempts during the preseason, but that was by design, and was held out of the final two games. Not knowing what was going to happen with Harris, Jim Harbaugh simply couldn't take any chances of his new weapon getting hurt as well.
As Graziano mentioned, OC Greg Roman has been adamant about his committee approach, but we'll just have to wait and see how things play out. Hampton has all the tools to succeed, and if he comes out hot against the Chiefs, it'll be difficult to limit his snaps.
Naturally, Raiders fans won't like the prediction, as they're obviously hoping Ashton Jeanty will take OROY honors. And there's undoubtedly a great chance that's how things will go down.
Last year's Heisman Trophy runner-up, who rushed for a ridiculous 2,601 yards and 29 touchdowns for Boise State in 2024, will be expected to handle much more of the load for Las Vegas. The Raiders did go out and add veteran Raheem Mostert to serve as RB2, but it'll be Jeanty getting the vast majority of the touches.
But again, we'll just have to wait and see how things play out.