Another bad loss for the Raiders means another week of wondering whether Antonio Pierce will bench Gardner Minshew in favor of Aidan O’Connell.
This time it was the Broncos. A bitter rival who had never beaten the Raiders since they made the move to Las Vegas — a streak of eight straight.
The game started out feeling like the Raiders were going to boat race the Broncos. Vegas scored a touchdown on the opening drive, with Brock Bowers making a great play on a floated ball from Minshew and turning it into a 57-yard touchdown. The second drive went for a field goal. And the third one was looking like it was headed for a touchdown.
Then everything fell apart.
Minshew rolled left and threw too high for Bowers at the goal line and it was intercepted and returned for a touchdown.
Thae Raiders would not score again in the game. Meanwhile the Broncos rattled off 34 straight points.
Minshew completed eight passes for 115 yards and a touchdown prior to the pick six. The rest of the game he completed four passes for 22 yards and two interceptions.
After his second interception, the Raiders pulled him in favor of Aidan O’Connell.
The score was still just 20-10 in the third quarter when Minshew was pulled, so it wasn’t quite like two weeks ago in the blowout to the Panthers when O’Connell came in. This time it was merely poor performance and the Raiders hoped maybe O’Connell could give them a shot. He didn’t.
His first pass went to no man’s land and was he missed completed one pass for four yards and threw two other passes to no one.
He was intercepted again on his third drive, this time on the first play, giving the Broncos great field position at the Vegas 39. They scored another touchdown off f it to go up 34-10.
The game was officially out of hand at that point, so that’s when O’Connell led the team on a pointless scoring drive.
Even with the garbage time stats to pretty things up, O’Connell still had just 94 yards on 50% completions with no TD’s and an interception. So, not exactly presenting himself as a better option than Minshew.
After the game, Antonio Pierces answer to who will be starting going forward was simply to shake his head and say “I don’t know” and adding that he has to watch the film.
Pierce has shown a short leash in his short time as the Raiders head coach. He stuck with O’Connell last season mainly because he was just brought in to play out the string and the Raiders wanted to see what they had in the rookie. He played well enough, combined with the high energy defense to get some unexpected wins. That’s not there this season and thus far neither of the QB’s has shown they can pick the team up.
The smart thing now would be to let the team know in the next couple of days whether Minshew is being yanked or if he’ll be given another shot next week, so they can rally around whoever is the starter. That is their best shot at finding some success. Though at this point, it’s hard to say if it will really matter.