AP names Gardner Minshew starting QB

[bucksavage1]

26 minutes ago, NickButera said:

I'd put money on the fact that Harbs is going to run circles around us. 

He was my #1 choice for HC. 

Harbs hasn’t coached in the NFL for a decade. Id be surprised if he hits the ground running again with wins. 

Herbert might not even be ready to play week 1

[NickButera]

42 minutes ago, bucksavage1 said:

Harbs hasn’t coached in the NFL for a decade. Id be surprised if he hits the ground running again with wins. 

Herbert might not even be ready to play week 1

That's a valid thought. I just have a very high opinion of him.

[NYRaider]

2 hours ago, MrOaktown_56 said:

We can easily trade up into the top 10 for a QB if we need one.

We could've traded up for Nix, McCarthy, or Penix this year and Telesco was happy to trot Minshew out there as the starter.

[raidersedge]

Bummer to see Raider fans talking about AP's job security already but we are the Raiders so you never know. I think after the Gruden and McDaniels disasters Mark can relax a bit for now because most of the fans and players all wanted AP as Head Coach. I feel pretty confident saying AP will get two full seasons before Mark makes a long term decision. Yes the QB situation is disappointing but I still don't think Raiders will have some kinda awful 3 win season, They will be too scrappy. This is a 7-9 win team.

[NYRaider]

3 hours ago, MrOaktown_56 said:

Shedeur Sanders. Yes he is cocky and a diva. But he is a very refined passer with great ball placement, clean fundamentals, good mobility, etc. I think he can be a plug and play in this offense and excel from day 1.

Basically what you and others painted Caleb to be is what Sanders actually is. Primadonna that bashes teammates, plays for himself, and is more about clicks then actually winning games. Biggest difference is that Caleb is actually a generational level talent and Sanders isn't very good.

[NYRaider]

1 hour ago, NickButera said:

Are you going to reply to my football based comment or troll with deflections and attempted reactionary comments again? 

All offseason we heard from the AP truthers about how he was going to turn this franchise around. Now it's acceptable for the team to suck? Can't have it both ways, if he's really the guy then we should be good this year, no excuses.

[dante9876]

18 minutes ago, NYRaider said:

We could've traded up for Nix, McCarthy, or Penix this year and Telesco was happy to trot Minshew out there as the starter.

Imo the 3( Beck, Sanders or Ewers) we realistically could get next year will be better than those 3.

[dante9876]

17 minutes ago, NYRaider said:

All offseason we heard from the AP truthers about how he was going to turn this franchise around. Now it's acceptable for the team to suck? Can't have it both ways, if he's really the guy then we should be good this year, no excuses.

That's crazy. So if you believe a coach is going to turn it around, they have to do it in their first season. So since everybody is so high on Harbaugh. How many wins this year do they need to have to it be consider a succes. Do he need to win a playoff game for it not to be a failure. 

[NYRaider]

9 minutes ago, dante9876 said:

Imo the 3( Beck, Sanders or Ewers) we realistically could get next year will be better than those 3.

All three of those guys could've entered the draft this year and chose to return to school because they weren't going to be first round picks.

[NYRaider]

7 minutes ago, dante9876 said:

That's crazy. So if you believe a coach is going to turn it around, they have to do it in their first season. So since everybody is so high on Harbaugh. How many wins this year do they need to have to it be consider a succes. Do he need to win a playoff game for it not to be a failure. 

They went 5-4 after AP took over

AP had an off-season to hire his coaching staff (particularly offensively), target guys he wanted in the draft/free agency, and get his program into place. If they get worse this year / take a step back, that's not a good sign.

[NCOUGHMAN]

I think gard dogg got the upper hand cause the deep hookups esp with trey.

[Tank4Drake]

I’ll say Minshew lasts until Week 5….. then AOC Week 6-12, then Minshew 13-16, then AOC 17-18. 

It’s gonna be a Grade A s***show. 

Edited August 19 by Tank4Drake

[Totty]

Man.. I was really hoping Aiden would step up but he never really shined.  Oh well, let's what what Minshew can do.  

Pros...

Mobility

Experience

Willingness to sling the rock

Cons...

Limited upside

Prone to stupid play here and there

Willingness to sling the rock when he shouldn't 

I think he plays until week 6 after a hot start and a cooling down period, there a change at the guard and Aiden comes in, and lights a fire under this squad. 

[ronjon1990]

3 hours ago, raidersedge said:

Bummer to see Raider fans talking about AP's job security already but we are the Raiders so you never know. I think after the Gruden and McDaniels disasters Mark can relax a bit for now because most of the fans and players all wanted AP as Head Coach. I feel pretty confident saying AP will get two full seasons before Mark makes a long term decision. Yes the QB situation is disappointing but I still don't think Raiders will have some kinda awful 3 win season, They will be too scrappy. This is a 7-9 win team.

Problem is, that's exactly what AP can't afford to do if he wants long term security. 

If we win too much, we're going to have to give up a fortune for a QB. And with where our key guys are in terms of age and/or contract status, the question becomes what sort of situation are we putting a QB into. 

Look at rookie and young QBs that went to aging or resource-poor teams. They almost never pan out. Closest we have is Herbert, but Staley was known as a bad HC pretty quickly and the Chargers course-corrected with Harbaugh. 

We could give up a fortune and draft the next Trevor Lawrence GOAT prospect, but look how that's played out beyond the hype. 

What QBs taken in round 1 have been successful recently? Love and Mahomes walked onto playoff caliber teams from day 1. Tua walked into a Dolphins team that made a concerted effort to gobble up a ton of resources and hired a wunderkind offensive HC. Houston took a similar route with Stroud, making a concerted effort to stash resources and picks and build the team from almost scratch. 

Contrary to the belief of some, we're just not "a QB away". We still have no idea what we have with at least 2 OL positions, we may not be far from having serious questions about a 3rd, we have absolutely no clue what our RB corps will shake out to be and if White does pan out, we dont have long before he's asking to get paid, our pass rush still generates as much pressure as a feather on a scale, our LBs are mostly replacement level amd have been absolutely abused this preseason, and several of our best DBs are close to contract talks. 

That isn't a formula for a resource-pricey QB to walk into, because there won't be much cash or many picks to fill in gaps. 

AP needs to tell Mark they've got to tank out for a QB or commit to throwing a ton of dough at a FA and swinging for the fences for a couple of years. The genetics of this team just aren't conducive to trading up for a QB. Chances are, regardless of who we take, they'll need at least a year before they're truly ready. That's 3 seasons from now, or, the 2026 season. 

Adams will be pushing 34. Zamir White, if he pans out, will be in contract talks. Crosby will be pushing 30 and in the last year of his current deal. Kolton Miller will be a FA that year and expensive to keep. Meyers will be a FA that year. Mayer would be seeking an extension that year. Parham will be a FA that year. Tucker will be in line for a big extension that year at this rate. That's the year Jones' current deal expires if he's not signed to a big deal soon. It's the last year of Andre James' deal. 

There's absolutely no way we can afford all of them + Hobbs, Moehrig, Koonce all getting paid soon. So the 2026 squad is going to be vastly different. We can't afford to throw a 2025 and 2026 1st+ at a QBOTF and project any real success based on what our team looks like today, because it won't be the same team by a long shot. Giving up that much means putting yet another QB in a bad spot behind an unproven OL and with a more barren supporting cast in both sides of the ball with no hope to adequately replace them before 2027/2028....by then further aging our core guys and then needing another year or so for those rookies to round into form. 

Getting stuck in a 7-9 win purgatory chasing after a QB is the absolute worst thing that could happen for AP's prospects and the Raiders overall for the remainder of this decade. 

 

[big_palooka]

9 hours ago, ronjon1990 said:

I wonder how much leash Pierce really has. Just 7 wins wouldn't hurt his standing. But if we bottomed out to, say, 4 wins? 

I'm not clamoring for him gone. Like you, let's give him a shot with a QB. 

That said, his bread and butter was supposed to be pep talks and defense. Not gonna lie, the vanilla calling aside, our D looks like it regressed yet again like we do every year. In both games so.fsr, they've looked out-muscled in the front 7. Last night, against backups, our starters looked pretty pedestrian outside of coverage. Pass rush was nonexistent and our LBs look like they're getting shoved backwards and bowled over far too often. 

I suppose my big question is the unanswerable- just how much did Mark truly want AP? 

Let's assume for a second that for whatever reason, Harbaugh was never going to happen (I think this is closer to fact, as it was such an obvious move that it not happening had to be spurred by something). Who else was there that ultimately took a job elsewhere? Nobody  we were linked to. 

My concern, as someone who wants AP to get a chance, is that he got his chance because we had no other option and quickly became one of the less desirable openings once we played ourselves out of a top 5 pick, and that Davis isn't going to give him nearly as much leash as he should. With how we've largely looked, it worries me a bit. There's vanilla playcalling, but guys getting shoved around isn't the result of vanilla calls, but a lack of heart and grit. If AP doesn't get that out of them, what is there? 

Very little seems to have fundamentally gone "right" since AP took over. We won a few games and got hyped, yes, but:

●We played ourselves into a pickle as far as draft slot. 

●We arguably overachieved with the assistance of an emotional high and McDaniels being ousted. 

●We had no link to a slam dunk HC. 

●Our preferred OC bailed and we wound up hiring a guy who was one of the worst OCs in the league thenlast year or so as a clear last ditch effort to not promote a random positional coach to OC. 

●We didn't get linked to any sexy GM, rather we took in the guy who's job we literally lost him a few months prior. 

●The QBs we could've tried to go after all miraculously went off the board before our pick- all SIX of them. 

●Our starters are getting pushed around by backups and our pass game already feels conceded as a lost cause. 

Those aren't all things within AP's control, but they're the kind of things that cause HCs to lose their jobs when the wins don't come along to mitigate the damage. 

Our "reset" from Josh McDaniels and Dave Zeigler was more of a soft reboot, almost as if trying to salvage something rather than admit clear defeat. Fair to AP or not, I gotta wonder how much can go wrong when it really starts to matter before Mark starts thinking that this regime looks more like a hack job Frankenstein than it is. 

I agree with most of this. I personally think AP was a joke hire. Interim coaches never work out. The honeymoon period is over and he actually has to show he has tools outside pep talks. He got the keys, screamed RAAAAIDDDERS then laid an egg on the OC and GM hires. It honestly could not have been less inspiring. 

That said, I've learned long ago to not trust what I see in preseason. I've seen Raider teams dominate preseason and be lackluster in season. And I've seen good Raider teams struggle in preseason. I'll reserve my opinions until the end of September but my guess is...

The defense was a bit overhyped last year on an emotional run and will regress back to it's mean. Should still be solid, but this won't be a top 5 unit some think it will. I still trust Graham and the staff's stewardship. 

The offense is going to be all sizzle, no substance. Minshew is capable of splash plays and they have the horses but those will be overshadowed by his inability to play from the pocket. He will make more mistakes and miss throws than he makes. Teams will stack the box on the run game knowing that's what they want to do.