The Las Vegas Raiders 2025 campaign was a factory of sadness. But that doesn’t mean the team was without it’s bright spots despite a 3-14 campaign.
One of the shining lights: Fourth-round rookie Tonka Hemingway.
The 6-foot-2 and 284-pound defensive tackle from South Carolina made the most of his limited snaps racking up four sacks in his initial season in the NFL. That sum tied Hemingway for fourth amongst 2025 rookies alongside the New York Giants’ Abdul Carter (third overall pick in the draft class) and the New England Patriots’ Elijah Ponder (undrafted free agent). The cream of the 2025 crop in terms of sacks was the Atlanta Falcons’ James Pearce Jr. (26th overall pick) with teammate Jalon Walker (15th overall pick) following with 5.5 and the Carolina Panthers’ Nic Scourton (51st overall) racking up five.
By The Numbers
Tonka Hemingway, Defensive Tackle, 2nd Year
- 2025: 9 games (zero starts), 9 total tackles, 5 tackles for loss, 4 sacks, 6 quarterback hits, 6 pressures, 1 pass deflection
- Career: 9 games (zero starts), 9 total tackles, 5 tackles for loss, 4 sacks, 6 quarterback hits, 6 pressures, 1 pass deflection
Hemingway was one of a number Raider rookies who didn’t get any consistent playing time and finally earned important snaps towards the tail end of the season. But despite being a healthy scratch for eight games, the South Carolina native wasn’t deterred.
Hemingway’s words on growth turned out to be prophetic as he showcased impressive pass rush chops in the final two games of the regular season where he collected three of his four sacks. He had one in a losing effort to the New York Giants in Week 17 and then two in a season-ending 14-12 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs the following week.
The defensive tackle showed he most certainly can help the Raiders and not just in the final three games of a trying 2025 season. While he may have played in only nine games and totaling just nine total tackles in 195 snaps, five of those stops were behind the line of scrimmage and he generated six pressures, six quarterback hits, and of course the four sacks.
That’s the kind of “making the most of his snaps” coaches want from their players. And for those moments where he was not only active for a game but was afforded the opportunity to showcase his mettle, Hemingway lived up to the “Tonka Tough” slogan for Tonka toy trucks. The steel resolve Hemingway showcased as a Gamecock during his collegiate days translated to the pros as a Raider.
And Las Vegas can use more of that desire and frenetic energy under head coach Klint Kubiak and his chosen defensive coordinator Rob Leonard — an in-house promotion after the latter served as the defensive line boss and defensive run game coordinator under former head honcho Pete Carroll.
Coming out of South Carolina, Hemingway was earmarked as a high-upside athletic defensive lineman who profiles as a “tweener” due to his 284-pound frame. Some analyst saw him as a 4-3 base defensive end due to be lighter and quicker, while others saw him as five-technique defensive tackle as a pure interior pass rusher due to not having the power to anchor against the run.
With Leonard now the defensive play caller and making the shift from a 4-3 base defense to a 3-4 variant, we’re likely to see Hemingway play the tweener role and dabble at both defensive end and tackle position groups this coming season. Hemingway can be an additional rusher as a 3-4 base end and when the Raiders deploy nickel and sub package alignments that feature four down linemen (4-2-5 for example), he can line up as a five-tech defensive tackle to provide interior pressure.
But the Year 2 bar for Hemingway is a bit murky. Because it relies on the assumption he goes from rotational depth piece into primary rotation or starter. By showing the late-season surge wasn’t a fluke helps Hemingway’s cause.
A strong training camp where Hemingway exhibits the energy, focus, and improved strength to stymie the run helps entrench him at two position groups that are unsettled: Defensive tackle and end — at least on a 3-4 front. But while the competition is open, it doesn’t mean the Raiders don’t have the talent to make the climb to earn consistent snaps an uphill one.
The competition at nose tackle — an integral part of the 3-4 look as a space-eating, attention drawing, anchor in the middle of the odd front — is drawing more attention, but the two tackle spots on an even front is important, too. And the battle for the five-technique role has Thomas Booker IV, Adam Butler, Jonah Laulu, Laki Tasi, and Hemingway. Of that group, Butler is the most consistent as both run defender and pass rusher. Booker and Laulu provide athleticism to be interior rushers but struggle against the run.
The win rate Hemingway produced last season — 7 percent as a rookie — is something the Raiders defensive line can’t have more enough of, however. But taking the competition into account, it’s difficult to see Hemingway be a 17-game starter. However, playing in all 17 games is plausible based on playing in more than half last season. And over the course of a 17-game regular season, a 2026 campaign with 15-20 total tackles, eight to 12 pressures, and five to six sacks is a proper bar in Year 2.
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