Raiders 'dodge bullet' with starter after injury vs. Patriots

Justin Churchill — College Football & NFL Trending News Writer

Oct 16, 2023 5:08 PM EDT

Las Vegas Raiders Josh McDaniels — Candice Ward-USA TODAY Sports

The Las Vegas Raiders just dodged a huge bullet with their recent news. Well, at least that's what head coach Josh McDaniels is telling us.

Against the New England Patriots, the Raiders got a huge win and started their first win streak of the season. But, in the game, we saw Jimmy Garoppolo leave at halftime and Brian Hoyer finish it out. Garoppolo was dealing with a back injury, and while the defense was on the field with a few seconds left, he was getting in an ambulance and being taken to a local hospital.

Usually, when you take players to the hospital during the game, it's to get a better look at the player with tools that maybe the stadium and locker room don't have. So, usually, it's to see some more internal things.

Ian Rapoport gave us the update that we should prepare to see O'Connell start this week. However, what McDaniels said on Monday is a bit more promising.

"So, update before we get going on Jimmy [Garoppolo]," McDaniels started. "There was some concern yesterday that there was an internal issue. We did a bunch of scans yesterday and last night. Seems like we've dodged a big bullet in that regard, so that's good news. We're still doing a couple of things this morning, and we'll kind of make sure we do all the right things here as we go forward. But the prognosis is a lot better than it might have otherwise been. I don't know 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."

We don't yet know what that dodged bullet is, but obviously, we are all happy that he did end up getting checked out. O'Connell is better than Hoyer, so I'd say expect to see him this week. Then again, Hoyer played very well on Sunday, closing the game out. So, we will just have to see.