Sin City Raiders

A lot can change in only six days in the life of a football fan. Entering play this week, the Las Vegas Raiders were riding high off a rare win at Arrowhead against the Kansas City Chiefs. Exiting play this week, the Raiders are officially eliminated from playoff contention and can focus on the offseason.

Raider Nation has had to juggle the highs and lows of what seems like an extraordinarily long 2023 season. It looked like they had gotten a head start on the upcoming offseason when they fired Josh McDaniels, Dave Ziegler and Mick Lombardi, but interim coach Antonio Pierce wasn’t about to lead two months of playing for a draft pick. Although it was unrealistic, the Raiders had a chance up until today of making the playoffs as Pierce showed Mark Davis why he should get the interim label removed.

It was another season where they weren’t good enough to make the playoffs, nor were they bad enough to get a high pick in the NFL draft. The last time the Raiders picked in the top-five, they took Clelin Ferrell in 2019 with the fourth pick. Before that, it was 2014 when they took Khalil Mack.

If the season were to end today, with the Sunday afternoon games still going, the Raiders are looking at a pick somewhere in the 10-14 range. Unless the Raiders were to make a blockbuster trade (the Carolina Panthers and Chicago Bears set a high bar last year) they will not be adding one of the highest rated quarterbacks in the 2024 draft class.

What should the Raiders do at quarterback next year? That will be answered in the next couple of months. First of all, the Raiders need to determine who will be coaching O’Connell and company. If Pierce were to be named the official head coach, I don’t see how he would want to keep a group of McDaniels-Lombardi holdovers that have coached a disappointing offense in 2023.

Going beyond that, we have to ask ourselves if Josh Jacobs has played his last game in Silver and Black? The answer is very likely yes. Especially with the stat lines that Zamir White has put up in the last few weeks.

Another one is will Davante Adams be traded to the Jets? Maybe if Aaron Rodgers goes rogue from New York’s front office and brokers it himself. Crazier things have happened, but I don’t see that trade happening.

Of course there are more questions to ask. But for now, there is one more game of Raider football and it is against the Denver Broncos. And while a higher draft pick is nice, a good scouting department won’t let a small difference derail the team’s rebuilding or reloading. So for 2024 I say let’s start the year the same way the 2023 season started; with a win against the Broncos.