Raiders Rumors: Should Vegas Go Star-Hunting At Quarterback?

The inevitable has become reality: after nearly a decade, Derek Carr is no longer with the Las Vegas Raiders. So…what’s next?

Of all the questions General Manager Dave Ziegler and Head Coach Josh McDaniels have to answer this off-season, none is bigger than this one. As I see it, the Raiders have three “pathways” towards solving their quarterback problem: they could go star hunting, they could make a lateral move towards a Carr-esque level quarterback, or they could go with a band-aid solution with an eye towards the future.

The truth is, each of these options has some pros and cons — and so over the coming days, we’re going to take a deep dive into what each pathway might look like and why we would advocate for or against that decision. Today, we’re starting with the headline-grabbing, sexy option: go find a superstar.

In reality, this list of options has just one name on it: Aaron Rodgers.

A couple of months ago, you might have put Tom Brady in this group, but (thankfully, in my opinion) he has retired and removed himself from consideration, leaving Rodgers alone. Now, regardless of what you think about Rodgers’ off-field antics, the 39-year-old (who remains under contract with the Packers) is just one year removed from back-to-back MVPs in 2020 and 2021. The point? He’s in a different tier from the Jimmy Garroppolo’s of the world, okay?

And yet…he’s 39 and coming off the worst season by just about any metric imaginable. QBR? Career worst. Rating? Career worst. Interceptions? Second-worst mark of his career. Yards per attempt? Second worst mark of his career.

You get the point.

This leads to the billion-dollar question…should the Raiders pursue Rodgers?

Let’s dive a little deeper into the argument for and against…

The argument for rests on the desire to win and win immediately. Maybe McDaniels looks at this roster — and the weapons at his disposal — and says that the window for competing is actually open. If that’s the case, then Rodgers has to be the pick because he’s the only guy available (in my opinion) who gives you a chance to be a threat in 2023. The only guy.

And who knows, maybe you can look past his brutal 2022 — and brutal performance in the playoffs — and squint enough to believe that teaming back up with Davante Adams will rekindle the MVP level he was at 12 months ago. Heck, Adams wants Rodgers to come to Vegas, it seems like, which should count for something considering all of the outside noise we hear about Rodgers the person, right?

But then there’s the flip side…

What if you can’t get past a 39-year-old who seemed to fall off a cliff in some respects? After all, it’s not as if Rodgers is coming at a discount — he’d cost you some draft capital (that’s what most teams get when they decide to move on from a highly competent NFL quarterback) and has a huge contract that is fully guaranteed in 2023 (but has an out afterward).

For an organization like the Raiders that is caught in purgatory at the moment — they have elite players no longer on rookie contracts (Maxx Crosby, Davante Adams, Darren Waller, Hunter Renfrow, Kolton Miller), but they’re not quite good enough to be competitive at a championship level. Does moving draft capital (and the rookie contracts that come with those picks) for a guy who will clog up your cap make sense in this phase of the Raiders rebuild?

For me, the verdict here would be a PASS on the star-chasing route. Ultimately, it’s a combination of the draft pick cost (which might not be crazy given Rodgers’ age and contract) and salary cost alongside the question marks we have about his on-field abilities. What the Raiders need is a crop of young guys to come in and plug a dozen different holes on affordable contracts if they have any chance of building something sustainable.

Honestly, it’s tough to write that last paragraph because it’s an admission that the 2023 season is going to be a disappointment — and yet, this is the price we’re paying for botched drafts and contracts over the past decade. Bite the bullet, build for the future, and hope that 2024 is when the turn-around begins in earnest.