The Las Vegas Raiders have found their new quarterback and it is one very familiar with their head coach. Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo has joined the franchise and will be the team’s new signal-caller. He spent the first three years of his career with the New England Patriots where Josh McDaniels was the offensive coordinator.
This, of course, means that Garoppolo has spent time within the system of McDaniels and is familiar with what it entails and the terminology used. And even though Garoppolo has spent the past six seasons in San Francisco in a different system under Kyle Shanahan, the new Raiders signal-caller doesn’t believe it will take too long to re-acclimated to McDaniels’ offense.
“I think there’s a different – Kyle [Shanahan]’s offense versus Josh’s offense, there’s just a different mindset behind it,” Garoppolo said at his introductory press conference. “So, I think revamping the mind like that is the first step, and then just relearning the language. Basically, it’s like going Spanish to French – something like that. And it won’t take long, but I think Josh’s offense, obviously, has evolved over the years and just got to pick it up as quickly as possible. But it’ll be fun.”
Garoppolo will definitely need to pick things up and develop that chemistry with his teammates. The Raiders have a lot of talent on the offensive side of the ball and if they can come together the offense has the chance to be explosive.
One new weapon is another former Patriot in wide receiver Jakobi Meyers and Garoppolo opened up as to why many have followed McDaniels to Las Vegas. “For me, it starts with, he’s very smart. He’s very smart,” Garoppolo noted. “He taught me the game of football basically in the NFL. But he cares too about the game like he cares about winning.
“You could really tell just talking to him that winning is important to him, and I wouldn’t say that’s true about everyone in the NFL. So, when you do get an opportunity like that, I mean, it’s hard to pass up.”
With McDaniels leading the way and Garoppolo under center the Raiders believe they have the chance to take a leap and return into playoff contention this season. This is one of the most storied franchises in the NFL and they want to get back amongst the elite teams and compete at the highest level.
