The Las Vegas Raiders spent this season as bottom feeders in just about every ranking that came out, and they really have no one to blame but themselves for their status. The latest insult came in the team’s stats in the final power rankings of The Athletic, which was written by Josh Kendall and Chad Graff, which had them rated 31st but also came with a surprising takeaway line:
“There’s optimism again … somehow”
Surprising, huh? But Kendall and Graff are actually right about this, as strange as it may seem. After a disastrous season in which coach Pete Carroll and quarterback Geno Smith failed epically and the subsequent coaching search unfolded in awkward fits and starts, the Raiders somehow managed to land one of the best available candidates, offensive coordinator of the Seattle Seahawks, as their new head coach.
It’s beyond improbable, but there’s now a clear path forward for the Raiders. Kubiak helped the Seahawks win the Super Bowl by rebuilding the team’s running game and keeping turnover-prone quarterback Sam Darnold on the straight and narrow through a deep playoff run.
They’ll almost certainly draft quarterback Fernando Mendoza with the top pick in the draft in a couple of months, and Kubiak will try to work some similar magic with the Raiders offense. Las Vegas has plenty of cap space to address its issues, several of which are formidable. The offensive line needs to be rebuilt, the receiving corps needs to be overhauled, and defensive star Maxx Crosby has already sworn he’ll never don a Raiders uniform again after being shut down for medical reasons.
It’s the quarterback situation where things get especially tricky, however. It’s somewhere between difficult and impossible to win with a rookie quarterback in the NFL, although the Washington Commanders did manage it with rookie QB Jayden Daniels.
Will Kubiak opt for a bridge backup while he develops Mendoza? The possibility is already being discussed, and there’s plenty of flotsam and jetsam out there to fill the quarterback slot, which is how the Raiders ended up with Smith in the first place.
It’s a tough decision, and it’s going to go a long way toward determining the success or failure of Kubiak’s tenure in Las Vegas. What the fan base is experiencing now could easily turn out to be false optimism, which Kendall and Graff summed up in their final comment about the Raiders:
We’re not falling for this again, are we?