What the Raiders need to accomplish coming out of the bye week

Deciding who will be the starting quarterback will be chief among the goals for Las Vegas

With eight players on injured reserve — four of which were either starters or game-day contributors — and an injury report that grew by the week, head coach Antonio Pierce knew his Las Vegas Raiders were in dire need of a reprieve during the bye week.

“I don’t think we’ll practice at all this week to be honest with you,” Pierce said during his Monday press conference to begin this week. “We’ll meet, we’ll have some self scout moments. We’ll have some time to reflect and talk, and at that point take a deep breath, reset, reset as a staff, reset as a team, and then get back together probably more than likely on Monday and Tuesday.”

The reset is required as Las Vegas entered the hiatus on a five-game losing skid and a 2-7 overall record. The Silver & Black are in the bottom tier on both offense and defense ranking 26th amongst the 32 teams in points scored (168 total, 18.7 average per game) and 29th in points allowed (251 total, 27.9 per game average).

There’s plenty for the Raiders to do and the question of it is it truly wise for Pierce to not have his team practice during the bye week with a new offensive coordinator (Scott Turner) and new offensive line coach (Joe Philbin) in place? — a valid and wise one. But here we are.

And as we enter a three-day holiday weekend, Las Vegas is slated to ramp up it’s Week 11 prep — a trip to the Miami Dolphins — the coming new week. Thus, let’s take a look at what the Raiders need to accomplish:

1. Determine who is the starting quarterback.
2. Establish an identity on offense.
3. Recalibrate the defense.
4. Take care of the ball while trying to take it away, too.

Who is QB1?

This will be both Pierce’s and Turner’s top priority. Do the Raiders trot out the well-compensated Gardner Minshew II for his eighth start of the year or do they roll with Desmond Ridder?

Minshew — who inked a two-year, $25-million contract with Las Vegas this past offseason — was benched yet again this season during the team’s 41-24 walloping at the hands of the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 9. He expressed frustration about getting yanked in favor of Ridder, but it’s difficult to ignore Minshew’s proneness to give the ball up. He’s thrown eight interceptions on the year (which ties him for third most in the league) and fumbled five times on the year (he has one in each of the last three games). Minshew did perform well int he 27-20 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 8 (24 of 30 for an 80-percent completion rate, for 209 yards and two touchdowns) but was ineffective the following week in Cincinnati.

Ridder, on the other hand, went 11 of 16 for 74 yards and a touchdown in mop up duty in Minshew’s stead against the Bengals. He was sacked four times and fumbled, too. But considering he was signed off the Arizona Cardinals’ practice squad on Oct. 22, he’s behind the proverbial eight ball. The 25-year-old does profile to be an athletic quarterback with the ability to scramble or buy time by moving around. And Ridder was a third-round pick just two years ago in the 2022 NFL Draft.

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It’ll either be Minshew and Ridder, depending on who Turner and Pierce determine runs the upcoming offense better as Aidan O’Connell is still on injured reserve with a broken thumb on his throwing hand.

That all said, it’s looking likely the Raiders’ future QB1 isn’t on the roster.

Establishing An Offensive Identity

Nine games into the season and still proclaiming your football team has no identity is damn near inexcusable. But that’s where we are with Pierce’s Raiders.

“Yeah, I just want to see us man, like I always talked about, us looking right, sounding right, matching the philosophy and idea of what I preach, which is physicality, ability to run the ball, taking shots down the field, protecting the football first and foremost, disciplined up front,” Pierce said this past Monday.

At the moment, the team’s identity is a disarray and incompetent football. The Raiders are not living up to Pierce’s expectations and it’s up to his new interim offensive coordinator and offensive line coach to instill that going forward.

The good news: Rookie offensive lineman Jackson Powers-Johnson, who has started at center, exhibits the attitude Pierce wants.

Defensive Recalibration

What was considered the Raiders’ strength coming into the 2024 campaign has reverted back to the hapless group the Silver & Black are accustomed to.

The Raiders have given up 30 more more points in four games this season with the 41-point shellacking from the Bengals the high-water mark on the season.

“Yeah, no listen, that was disappointing, the last couple weeks. I think last five weeks we’ve given up 30+ points three out of the last five, that’s not to our standard,” Pierce said. “These guys are fighting their tails off, issues now showing up a little in the red zone. We were pretty good in red zone, good on third down, those have now been a little bit of a nemesis to us, and I think we’ve got to fix those things up. And again, like I just talked to the coaches and Patrick Graham about just going back to the drawing boards man, going back to what we do well, detailing the assignments. And that’s just not the coaches, that’s the players doing their job and what’s asked of them to do. And we have to do that to our fullest ability.”

This is largely due to injury — losing stalwart defensive tackle Christian Wilkins, strong safety Marcus Epps during the season and promising pass rusher Malcolm Koonce before the regular season began are big hits to a football team that lacks ideal depth.

But the Raiders have no choice but to make due with what they got and a rejuvenated pass rush against the Dolphins in Week 11 would help tremendously. The offense’s inability to sustain drives hurts the defense too, but the unit isn’t doing itself any favors.

Don’t Giveth, But Taketh

Las Vegas is the owner of an absurd statistic: 19 turnovers to just five takeaways. The number of turnovers leads the league (the Tennessee Titans were second with 17 heading into Week 10 action) and the meager number of takeaways ties Las Vegas with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Cleveland Browns for least in the NFL.

The -14 ratio in turnovers and takeaways leas the league by far and despite Pierce being adamant at protecting the football, his team hasn’t done so. If the Raiders are genuine about their desire to play good football in the final eight games of the season, it must cease giving the ball away and start taking it away.

“So this is not just on the offense, even though we made changes on offense, this is a team problem, and this is a coaching staff that we need to fix first before we go downstairs on the first floor, and we’ll address that with one another as players and staff, because we’re all in this together man,” Pierce noted. “Listen, every call is not right, every player doesn’t play right, but we’ve got to do it together. We’ve got to stop with the details and excuses and do our job to the best of our ability.”