Considering the Raiders quarterback options, the team will go into the 2024 NFL season, we can guess, with an offense attempting to learn the same simple directive as medical students across the world: Do no harm.
Actually, we probably do not have to guess. All the signals are there. The Raiders quarterbacks are second-year quarterback Aidan O’Connell, kept on to compete for the starting job this season, and journeyman free-agent Gardner Minshew. The expectation was that at least one other realistic option would be brought in, either in the draft (Michael Penix?) or perhaps in a trade (Justin Fields?), to give the competition some juice.
But the draft board went haywire on incoming QBs, and the Raiders could find no added free agents they liked. So, the front office shrugged and left the lead job as a Minshew-O’Connell affair.
That could be good enough, if they can avoid mistakes, to get the Raiders into the 9- or 10-win range and perhaps into the postseason. But it’s not going to make this team a contender. Obviously, that will have to wait a year.
And the Raiders could be in especially good standing to pursue what will potentially be the biggest free agent on the market next winter: Cowboys star quarterback Dak Prescott, a three-time Pro Bowler whose $160 million contract is up at the end of this season.
Dak Prescott Bound for 2025 Free Agency?
This from the “Spotrac Podcast,” the handiwork of Spotrac NFL contract expert and analyst Mike Ginnitti, who recently broke down the impending free agency of Prescott and why, despite some confidence from the Cowboys that Prescott will stay put, hitting free agency makes a wealth of sense for the QB star—or any QB star.
The Cowboys want Prescott to lock into a long-term deal, which would keep him from being the next Raiders quarterback, of course. That makes little sense for him, though, because a short-term deal allows him to take advantage of skyrocketing quarterback salaries, which keep going up commensurate to the salary cap.
“What Dallas is doing, they’re trying to give him a career contract and he’s trying to take a three- or four-year deal,” Ginnitti said. “He’s trying to do right by the players. And take the short deal, because the cap is going to be $350 (million) by the time that contract is done and he knows it. That’s what’s happening.
“I feel like (notorious baseball agent) Scott Boras is calling him and being like, ‘Dude, don’t even pick up the phone anymore, March 12 is happening—you gotta let this go to free agency, you gotta get nine offers, you gotta let this happen.’”
And the Raiders should take note. They were one of the first potential suitors mentioned for Prescott: “Just to hammer home the point, obviously Dallas, they don’t have a quarterback, all of their quarterbacks are on expiring contracts right now. … The Raiders probably need him today, let alone March 12.”
Raiders Quarterback Duo Could Both See Time This Season
Indeed, today would be a nice time for the Raiders to have Prescott on the roster. Neither Minshew, nor O’Connell, has seized the job in training camp, and the two will likely battle it out in preseason games to see who wins the starting role. Even then, it could be just a temporary victory. It’s likely we’ll see both quarterbacks at different points this season.
That puts a cap on how good the Raiders can be in 2024. Coach Antonio Pierce pretty much confessed as much this week.
“We’re probably not going to be, to be honest, a juggernaut offense,” Pierce said, per ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler. “Would I love to be? Yeah. To sit here and say we’re going to score 30 points a game, that’s not realistic.”
Give Pierce a guy like Dak Prescott as Raiders quarterback in 2025, though? That would certainly change things.
