The Las Vegas Raiders have gotten themselves back on track as they’re now riding a modest two-game winning streak after outlasting the New England Patriots in Week 6.
In a highly-anticipated matchup between Josh McDaniels and Bill Belichick, the former prevailed against his former mentor. The Patriots have been one of the worst teams in the NFL this year, and the Raiders did enough to make sure they didn’t turn their season around against them.
However, the victory came with another unfortunate injury to Jimmy Garoppolo, who was forced to exit the game with a back injury. Brian Hoyer took his place and managed to complete six of his 10 pass attempts for 102 yards.
Back injuries can be a serious issue, but McDaniels said that Garoppolo avoided disaster via Kevin Patra of NFL.com:
“There was some concern yesterday that it was an internal issue,” McDaniels told reporters. “So we did a bunch of scans yesterday, last night. Seems like we dodged a big bullet in that regard. That’s good news. We’re still doing a couple things this morning and we’ll kind of make sure we do all the right things here as we go forward. The prognosis is a lot better than it might have otherwise been. Don’t yet for this week, relatively speaking. So there’s a lot still to, I’d say, uncover in that regard, but good news relative to what it might have been.”
It’s obviously good news that Garoppolo won’t be on the shelf for too long, but this is already the second time he’s been hurt this season. Garoppolo previously missed Week 4 against the Los Angeles Chargers due to a concussion, and it sounds like he’s going to miss Week 7 against the Chicago Bears.
Since Hoyer got the nod over Aidan O’Connell, he figures to start against Chicago though McDaniels will likely use the week to determine whether if it should be him or Aidan O’Connell. O’Connell flashed in his start against the Chargers, though he did commit multiple turnovers and was sacked seven times.
Hopefully, Garoppolo will be able to return sooner rather than later, though the organization and fans should have a better idea once he undergoes more testing in the next couple of days.
