After the 2023 NFL season officially ended for the Las Vegas Raiders, the team’s top priorities heading into the offseason were to hire a head coach and general manager. Then, the team would focus all of its efforts on the 2024 NFL Draft and NFL free agency, with hopes of improving this roster for next season.
Even though the team seemed determined to hire a general manager first before making a decision on the head coach of the future, the Raiders chose to go in a different direction by officially removing the interim tag and making Antonio Pierce the head coach for the foreseeable future.
With Pierce in the fold, it seemed inevitable that the Raiders would do the same for interim general manager Champ Kelly, who also did an admirable job replacing Dave Ziegler.
However, the Raiders have seemingly also chosen to go in a different direction with that as well. According to Adam Schefter of ESPN, the Raiders are in the process of hiring former Los Angeles Chargers general manager Tom Telesco to be the team’s new general manager in Las Vegas.
An AFC West jump: Raiders are working to hire former Chargers’ general manager Tom Telesco as their new general manager, per league sources. pic.twitter.com/tRrl0DSwsn
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 23, 2024
Even though a lot of Raiders fans will scoff at the team hiring Telesco because the Raiders were partly responsible for him losing his job in Los Angeles due to the team dropping a historic 63 points on the Chargers on December 14, he did a good job of stacking that team will talent over the years.
The problem for the Chargers wasn’t the talent the team had on the field but the coaching on the sideline, with Brandon Staley looking lost most of the time on how to put it all together in Los Angeles. Telesco just became victim to the Chargers brass wanting to clean house, even though he did an admirable job putting a lot of talent on the field on both sides of the football.
With Telesco in the fold, it’ll be interesting to see where the Raiders go from here in their attempts to create a stacked roster on both sides of the football. The quarterback position will be a point of emphasis, with the consensus being that Aidan O’Connell is not the right man for the job.
The Raiders could look to the draft for their new quarterback with a lot of talk lately about the team favoring Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels out of LSU, but the team will likely need to trade up in the first round to get him.
Another option is bringing in another veteran quarterback, with Kirk Cousins potentially gaining some traction after what Davante Adams said about him lately. Cousins, however, is coming off a torn Achilles at 35, so he could be a risky choice for Las Vegas.
