The Las Vegas Raiders officially ruled out left tackle Kolton Miller, and he’ll join defensive end Maxx Crosby as the two Raiders stars who will be out of this one, according to a story written by Charean Williams of Pro Football Talk.
Miller’s injury situation has been mismanaged as badly as Crosby’s—maybe worse, in fact. Miller hurt his left leg during the Raiders game against the Chicago Bears back on Oct. 19, and a subsequent MRI revealed that the injury was a high ankle sprain with a hairline fracture.
That’s a serious injury, but the Raiders were intent on coming back, and presumably Miller wanted to return as well. This made a certain amount of sense in October and maybe early November, but it stopped making sense as the Raiders losing streak continued to lengthen.
Miller was reactivated on Dec. 10, but the question is why. The Raiders aren’t going anywhere, and they’ve been putting a bad product on the field for a couple months now. The risk of aggravating the injury or generating a new one simply isn’t worth it, but we all know why this is happening.
The answer to that one is coach Pete Carroll. He’s coaching for his job and still trying to win games, as if that matters at this point in the season. Carroll is pretending that he’s not going to get fired and acting like he’s going to be around for the rest of his contract, but there’s no way that’s going to happen.
Carroll was finally overruled, presumably by the Raiders medical staff, and hopefully the owner, with the decision to keep Crosby off the field. Given that Miller is playing with a lucrative extension, why should he be any different?
It’s not surprising that Crosby decided to leave the facility after he was ruled out, and he’s probably played his last game as a Raider. Ludicrously, the Raiders are still leaving open the possibility that Miller could play in the Raiders final game against the Kansas City Chiefs, which will feature Chris Oladokun, the Chiefs’ third-string quarterback.
None of this makes a bit of sense, but this is where the Raiders are right now. They can’t even play out the string effectively, and they’ve now managed to tick off their star player while leaving open the possibility of putting their left tackle at risk in a game where he should never see the field.