Raiders coach explains franchise-altering decision
The Las Vegas Raiders are falling eerily close to an exit of the playoff race. Now, they just benched their starting quarterback. It is clear that change is coming in Las Vegas. This transition comes just one season after plenty of changes last off-season. Head coach Josh McDaniels is still focusing on finishing this season […]
The Las Vegas Raiders are falling eerily close to an exit of the playoff race. Now, they just benched their starting quarterback.
It is clear that change is coming in Las Vegas. This transition comes just one season after plenty of changes last off-season.
Head coach Josh McDaniels is still focusing on finishing this season on a high note, though, regardless of the team's current state. They still have an outside shot at making the postseason, but that just got a lot harder after McDaniels made the decision to bench Derek Carr.
In order to provide a little bit of insight, McDaniels attempted to find a common thread between the decision to bench Carr and a couple of other personnel decisions that were made in recent days: placing Chandler Jones and Denzel Perryman on IR.
"It is what it is. Like I said, we're not going to have Chandler [Jones] out there, we're not going to have Denzel [Perryman] out there," McDaniels told reporters. "So, we've dealt with this in other positions obviously. And so, the intent is to have a great week of preparation and practice and go out there and do everything we can to win the game, and that's what we're going to try to do.
"So, excited to play at home again in front of our fans. We've had decent year at home so far, and we're going to try to continue that this week."
The mentioning of Jones and Perryman was a bit odd. For a couple of reasons.
McDaniels' comparison is apples to oranges. For starters (and the obvious), Carr is healthy. The other two players are not.
The loss of Jones and Perryman do not amount to a quarterback change, either.
Going away from a veteran QB to a newcomer completely alters the entire team's outlook. Both the offense and defense are affected. They have a brand new leader at signal caller, for now, at least.
That being said, those two players are important to the Raiders' defense. It seems like McDaniels was downplaying how big of a shift may come on offense with a different quarterback under center.
We will see how the swap affects the Raiders in the short-term.
Featured Image via USA TODAY-Sports
