The Raiders will be taking a big swing for a quarterback in the offseason, and all options appear to be on the table in terms how they will go about finding their next quarterback.
For much of the season, Shedeur Sanders and Cam Ward have been linked to the Raiders, but it’s beginning to look like both quarterbacks will be out of reach for the Raiders based on their draft position.
For that reason, The Athletic’s Vic Tafur said he believes the Raiders will find their next quarterback by way of free agency or a trade.
“I think there’s a good chance that those three guys won’t happen for the Raiders,” Tafur said of Sanders, Ward and Sam Darnold on the Just Win podcast this week. “So what happens next? I think you look at trade options. I think it’s going to be through trade or through free agency to get their starter for next season.”
If Darnold is re-signed or gets the franchise tag from Minnesota, the list of free agent quarterbacks is going to be thin and the Raiders might have to focus on trade possibilities.
With that in mind, The Athletic’s Tashan Reed offered a player he believes might be the Raiders best QB option on the trade market.
“The Arizona Cardinals’ Kyler Murray is the top option who could be available,” Reed wrote on Wednesday.
“[Murray] signed a five-year, $230.5 million contract in 2022 and has three years remaining on his deal, but the Cardinals have missed the playoffs for three seasons in a row and might be looking for a change,” Reed continued. “They would take a dead cap hit of $33.2 million if they traded Murray, however, so the trade package would likely need to blow them away. Murray will be only 28 next season and ranks in the top 14 in completion percentage, passing yards and expected points added per dropback, so it’s easy to see the Cardinals just deciding to hold on to him.”
Reed might have information that leads him to believe the Raiders would be interested in Murray, but it’s hard to imagine a scenario where they would mortgage their future on Murray.
Murray would be an upgrade over Aidan O’Connell, but the cost would be significant, and Murray’s work ethic probably hasn’t reached a level that would impress Tom Brady and GM Tom Telesco.
The fit just doesn’t seem like a good one.
So until the Vikings say it isn’t a possibility, the best trade option for the Raiders will probably be former University of Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy.
The idea of the Raiders making a trade for McCarthy started gaining traction last week, and ESPN’s Adam Schefter addressed trade rumors around McCarthy this week.
“In a limited quarterback draft class, where there are far more teams that need quarterbacks than quarterbacks who actually can step in right away, I definitely think teams will be checking in with the Vikings to see if they have any interest in trading J.J. McCarthy,” Schefter said on ESPN’s Unsportsmanlike.
“Now they may say [they] don’t and that’s the end of it, but do I think teams will explore that option… of course. Absolutely. 100 percent. Because J.J. McCarthy would’ve been a top, if not the top, quarterback prospect in this draft,” Schefter continued. “If the Vikings decide that they wanted to trade him, which I don’t know that they will, I believe they would get back everything they put into him and then some. It would be a [first round pick] and then some.”
There are plenty of unknowns around the Raiders quarterback situation, but it does appear Aidan O’Connell is going to be part of the team’s long-term plan in some capacity.
Based on the way he has played in recent weeks; O’Connell looks like a capable starter, so the Raiders shouldn’t be inclined to panic if there aren’t any exciting QB options in free agency.
For what it’s worth, the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Vinny Bonsignore even floated the idea of O’Connell being more than just a stopgap at quarterback for the Raiders.
“I don’t know whether or not this was the best game in Aiden O’Connell’s career. It felt like it,” Bonsignore said on Raider Nation Radio’s Morning Tailgate on Monday. “He definitely played good football. The question with Aiden O’Connell is going to be, and always has been, can he do it consistently over a 17-game schedule?”
“Here’s the thing, we’ve never seen it,” Bonsignore continued. “We don’t know. How are we supposed to know? Did he get 17 games last year? No. He started, what 9 nine games? The last nine games of the year? So, I don’t know, last year, what he would have done with 17 games. How about this year? Well, he wasn’t the starting quarterback to start this season, and he got hurt as well after he did regain the starting quarterback job. So he’s not even close to playing a full schedule this year.”
