It feels like forever ago since the Las Vegas Raiders played a football game. Then again, with the product they are putting on the field, it's not really something anyone wants to remember.
But, if you remember the last time they played, which was a loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, they finished that game with Desmond Ridder, the former starter of the Atlanta Falcons and the practice squad player of the Arizona Cardinals.
Ridder was a guy the Raiders signed a few weeks prior, and they put him in for any potential spark after Gardner Minshew just wasn't getting it done. Before going into the bye week, but after the loss to the Bengals, head coach Antonio Pierce let everyone know he would have a decision made soon on the starting quarterback situation moving forward.
On Wednesday, he revealed what his decision was.
"Yeah. Gardner Minshew," Pierce told the media when asked if he made his decision yet. "Listen, when we brought in Gardner [Minshew], we expected, obviously, the play that we had seen in the past. And at some point, you got to give a guy confidence.
"And there's been times, obviously, with turnovers and other things that have taken place where we made decisions to either put him on the bench or go to another quarterback. But this week, I felt like Gardner gives us the best opportunity to move forward, and he has every opportunity to go out there and help us get to a win."
Now, I support the decision if you want to continue to be bad and lose games. The higher the draft pick the better, and to get a higher draft pick you need to lose more games. But, the Raiders currently do not have a guy at quarterback. They have a few players on the roster who can kind of throw the ball. But, they don't have A guy.
So, why not go with the guy who is still very young in Desmond Ridder and just needs some development? Why not? It doesn't make much sense. It's not like he is going to be too good and start winning them a ton of games. This is not a team that is losing solely because of the quarterback -- there are a ton of problems with this team.
Minshew will start against the Miami Dolphins. As to who will play against the Denver Broncos the week after, or the Kansas City Chiefs, we have no idea.
