Lincoln Kennedy Not a Fan of Raiders’ Direction with Geno Smith

If he is healthy enough to play on Sunday, it sounds like Geno Smith is going to be the Raiders’ starting quarterback this week against the Texans.

Pete Carroll hinted at the beginning of the week that Smith is still the starter when healthy, and the trending direction as of Friday is that he is going to be healthy enough to play.

On Thursday, Lincoln Kennedy shared his thoughts on the Raiders quarterback room, and he doesn’t like the idea of going back to Smith at this point in the season.

“I’m not a big fan of the move,” Kennedy said on the Locked on Raiders Squad Show podcast.

“I think that this particular time, you’ve seen all that you’re going to get out of Geno. You should probably play some of the other guys. We had talked about earlier this week, I thought that Kenny Pickett should get the nod in this game. And then maybe Aiden O’Connell get the nod in that last two games. What do you have to lose?”

“But here’s the thing. The caveat is we know that Pete Carroll is extremely loyal. He’s been loyal to his players, been loyal to his coaches. This is not a surprise move.”

As Kennedy and others have pointed out, Carroll has been loyal to Smith to a fault, and that was a dynamic that was known to some before the season even started.

The Athletic’s Michael-Shawn Dugar covered Carroll in Seattle, and he shared a couple of interesting insights in the offseason about Carroll’s coaching methods and his affinity for Smith.

“Pete knows Geno and probably believes in Geno more than anyone outside of Geno’s immediate family. The way Pete talks about Geno is the way I talk about my daughter. Pete really loves this dude,” Dugar said on the Just Win podcast in April.

“At some point last year, he was like, ‘Geno is one of my favorite stories. He’s one of my favorite players I’ve ever coached.’ Pete has been coaching since the 70s. For Geno to rank that high, that means a lot.

x: @raidersbeat

RAIDERS SQUAD SHOW: Las Vegas RAIDERS @ Houston TEXANS PREVIEW | Geno Smith Returns

The Las Vegas Raiders are back in action as they prepare to take on the Houston Texans, and we’re breaking it all down on today’s show with Lincoln Kennedy and Q Myers. We start with the latest Raiders news and injury updates before diving into a full Raiders vs Texans preview, including keys to victory, the X-factor that could swing the game, and final score predictions.