Quarterback-needy Raiders aren’t as far away from success as advertised

By Case Keefer (contact)

Monday, March 6, 2023 | 2 a.m.

A month ago, a large number of football fans were convinced Aaron Rodgers was buying a home in Las Vegas ahead of becoming the Raiders’ next quarterback. Now they’re ready to put the for sale signs back up in the yard.

Such is the seesaw of the NFL offseason where every square inch of information spurs an overreaction.

Social-media chatter, and some fairly innocuous campaigning from current Raiders, initially linked the team to the four-time NFL MVP, who might be traded from the Green Bay Packers this offseason. The front-and-center presence of Raiders general manager Dave Ziegler and coach Josh McDaniels at the NFL Scouting Combine last week in Indianapolis has shifted the focus elsewhere.

McDaniels and Ziegler got their first up-close and personal look at what’s regarded as an above-average quarterback class in the 2023 NFL Draft, scheduled to start on April 27 in Kansas City. They also gave every indication that they plan to address their need at football’s most important position through the draft, if not with their current No. 7 overall pick.

“The goal for us is to eventually have somebody that’s going to be here for a long time,” McDaniels said of the next quarterback in his combine news conference. “You see the teams that are having success right now in our league, in our conference, and specifically in our division, they’re young players that were drafted by their clubs, and they’re being developed there under the same continuity.”

That message should come as a relief to Raiders’ fans. Drafting and developing the right quarterback has always looked like the Raiders’ best course of action to set themselves up for sustained success in the post-Derek Carr era.

But don’t count out a move for Rodgers or some free agent just yet either. And, more importantly, don’t count it out because of what’s becoming the most popularly-cited reason in NFL circles: That the Raiders aren’t strong enough elsewhere to justify springing for a luxury at the position.

Las Vegas has too many top-end roster pieces to go with too many other advantages elsewhere to be considered among the dregs of the league. The Raiders are coming off a disappointing first season under McDaniels and Ziegler, but one where they went a highly-unlucky 4-9 in one-score games.

Translation: They’re not as far behind as their overall 6-11 record from this past season may indicate. Acting like the Raiders are a helpless cause with no hope of an immediate turnaround gives Ziegler and McDaniels a built-in excuse if they have a second straight underwhelming season.

They deserve some runway in trying to turn around one of the NFL’s worst franchises of the last 20 years, but not that much of one. The Raiders should be expected to compete in the upcoming 2023 season.

A year ago, they were a trendy pick to contend for the AFC West if not the Super Bowl after acquiring wide receiver Davante Adams and edge rusher Chandler Jones.

There are those offseason overreactions again.

Calling for the Raiders to spring to the top of the NFL last year was as much of a reach as relegating them to the bottom this year. Las Vegas is not in a rebuilding situation, even if some of the messaging makes it sound that way.

“We feel like we have the opportunity with the amount of picks we have this year, with where we’re picking, that we have the opportunity to build that core group of players,” Ziegler said in an interview with reporters at the combine that the Raiders shared on their YouTube page. “That doesn’t always mean that you (draft) 12 superstars, 12 starters. Some of those guys are working-class individuals that provide depth to your team too, but there’s a healthy excitement, a healthy anxiousness to have that opportunity in front of us and go capitalize on it.”

Ziegler saved himself with the second part of that statement, but the “build that core group of players” remark should border on blasphemy to the Raiders’ current stars. Adams, edge rusher Maxx Crosby and running back Josh Jacobs — whom the team is expected to keep either via a contract extension or a franchise-tag designation this offseason — are the top of the Raiders’ core as long as they’re around.

Take quarterbacks out of the equation, and few teams in the NFL have a better trio to build around. The Raiders owe it to that group containing some of the league’s best players at their respective positions to chase as many wins as possible right now.

The current NFL is built on parity. Seeing a few teams complete a dramatic turnaround every year is the norm.

Four straight Super Bowls have featured a team that wouldn’t have been considered a real contender at the end of the previous season. Two of the sides (the 2021-2022 Cincinnati Bengals and 2019-2020 San Francisco 49ers) were coming off worse campaigns than the Raiders had in 2022-2023.

The commonality with all those teams is they had, or found, the right quarterback to bring out the best in a promising surrounding roster. That’s the challenge now facing the Raiders.

“When you’re looking at the desire to win now and a future quarterback, it’s interesting because you’ve seen it go both ways in terms of you draft a guy and he sits,” Ziegler said. “Like (Patrick) Mahomes, he sat for a year…There’s a history of doing that and players having success and then there’s a history of guys getting thrown in the fire right away and it worked out.”

“I think it’s just a philosophical thing that you have to make a decision on, and you have to be aligned from the top of the organization down.”

It’s a tricky proposition, but navigating it correctly is why Ziegler and McDaniels are paid so handsomely. They must know the rest of their team is better than it’s currently and suddenly perceived.

The Raiders’ offense was above average by most metrics last season despite a mediocre year from Carr that has him looking for a new job. Their defense was….not above average by any metrics but that should be more correctable.

Defensive performance is far less steady year-over-year even though the Raiders are the one team that seem to defy all logic and stay below average every season for more than a decade. As long as Crosby is around, perhaps with Jones maintaining the late-season form that had him playing better before a season-ending injury in Week 16, there’s a path to the Raiders being more respectable on defense.

Las Vegas has plenty of resources to make it happen. The Raiders are third in salary cap space with more than $46 million free going into the start of the new league year on March 15 per spotrac.com. They’re sixth in draft capital with 11 picks per tankathon.com.

The problem with acquiring Rodgers is that he’d greatly cut into both collections of assets. A trade would surely cost draft picks and Rodgers' current salary would take up more than half of the Raiders’ available space.

But the amount of picks required to get him could turn out relatively low if Rodgers dictated he wanted to come to Las Vegas, and he’s already said he would be open to restructuring his contract in the right situation.

The 39-year-old Rodgers is probably not the answer for the Raiders, but if Ziegler and McDaniels believe he can play at the MVP-winning level he showed in 2020 and 2021, then he must be seriously considered. Rodgers wouldn’t be in a destitute situation and have a lack of talent around him with the Raiders.

That won’t be the case no matter who becomes the next quarterback. Whether it’s ultimately the greenest of rookies or the biggest-name veteran, the timeline shouldn’t budge.

The Raiders need to win now.

“It’s obviously one of the biggest factors that will certainly impact our season, let alone our offseason,” McDaniels said of the quarterback decision. “But there’s nothing we can do other than go through our process and really do a good job of evaluating our opportunities and options and make smart decisions about what’s best for the Raiders every step of the way.”

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or