The Underrated Chess‐Piece: Why NFL.com calls Jeremy Chinn the Raiders’ best‐kept secret

When the NFL.com editors surveyed every AFC roster for a player who deserves more love, they didn’t pick a running back, an edge rusher or a star receiver. They chose Jeremy Chinn — the 6‑foot‑3, 220 pound safety/linebacker hybrid who quietly stuffed the stat sheet for Las Vegas in 2025 and was named the team’s most under‑appreciated player. It was a surprise to some; after all, this is a defense that still features Maxx Crosby and spent significant capital upgrading the secondary. But a deeper look reveals that Chinn’s versatility, instincts and physicality made him an indispensable part of the Raiders’ 2025 defense – and the perfect symbol of Pete Carroll’s Seattle‑style vision in the desert.

This piece dives into why NFL.com believes Chinn is under‑appreciated, what his film and advanced numbers reveal about his strengths and weaknesses, how he supported the defense in 2025 and what needs to happen for him to maintain his starting role in 2026. Expect an honest assessment without the generic platitudes, because Raider Nation deserves smarter analysis.

Chinn entered the league as a safety/linebacker hybrid for Carolina and finished second in the 2020 Defensive Rookie of the Year voting. Injuries and scheme changes sapped his production in 2022–2023, but he rebooted his career under Dan Quinn in Washington in 2024 and parlayed that into a two‑year deal with Las Vegas. According to Sports Illustrated’s deep dive on the Raiders’ defensive turnover, he recorded 117 tackles, seven tackles for loss, two sacks, one interception, five pass breakups and a forced fumble in 2024, while missing only 8.7 % of his tackles and logging 35 run stops. He allowed five touchdowns and a 125.8 passer rating in coverage, but when used as an underneath zone defender his numbers were far better (57.3 passer rating).

Those numbers persuaded general manager John Spytek to make Chinn a centrepiece of the Raiders’ defensive reboot. The table below summarises his statistical production over the last two seasons and his career totals. The 2025 numbers come from multiple verified sources (heavy.com and RotoWire) and reflect high‑confidence data; any metric without reliable sourcing is intentionally omitted.

Key takeaways: