It’s been a forgettable season for the Raiders and there is certainly a long list of mishaps that have led to the team’s 4-12 record.
Injuries have played a role; coaching deserves some blame and the quarterback situation in Las Vegas has been as bad as any in the league.
There was some enthusiasm around Gardner Minshew at the start of the season, but the veteran quarterback turned in the worst season of his NFL career in 2025.
It’s easy to make decisions in hindsight and former Raiders’ QB Rich Gannon shared one of his biggest regrets on the season this week. He believes the season could have taken a different course if the Raiders had gone with Aidan O’Connell as the starting quarterback in week one.
“I’m curious what the season would have looked like, if like if as a three of us talked about coming into training camp, I think all of us were a little bit surprised with a decision to go with Gardner Minshew, not Aidan O’Connell, especially after what accomplished last season,” Gannon said to Eric Allen and JT the Brick on the Raiders Roundtable podcast.
“I mean, the guy played 10 games. He won five of them. He beat the Chiefs. He beat the Chargers. He beat the Broncos. He went through a coaching change. He went through a coordinator change as a rookie,” Gannon continued. “I thought there were some good things there and I was a bit surprised that the organization decided to start Gardner Minshew, not Aidan O’Connell. Just curious what that season would have looked like had they gone with Aidan O’Connell week one.”
Gannon is right that there were many who believed O’Connell would end up winning the starting job, but at least one of his co-hosts was making the case for Minshew to be the starter prior to the start of the regular season.
“You’ve got these first two games on the road,” JT the Brick said on his Raider Nation Radio program in August. “They are really tough [and] we’re going up against two of the better defenses or individual defensive players out there. Maybe Gardner [Minshew] can get out there, step out of the pocket, run away from Khalil Mack and Bosa a little better than Aidan. Let’s give him the shot to play the first two games.”
It seemed like a reasonable position at the time. Minshew was the veteran, and the Raiders opened the season with two very tough defenses on the road. But there’s no question O’Connell has been the better quarterback in his limited opportunities this year.
Looking back, one of the reasons for O’Connell’s success might have something to do with his offensive coordinator. O’Connell played all but one game with Scott Turner as his offensive coordinator while Minshew played 8 of his 10 games with Luke Getsy as the offensive coordinator.
For Getsy’s part, it sounds like he was one of the strongest voices in support of Minshew moving into the regular season.
“I believe that [Antonio Pierce] went with Gardner because that’s what, I know it’s what his offensive coordinator wanted, and I believe in my opinion that he acquiesced to trust his coordinator,” Carpenter said on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast.
It might have been a mistake to go with Minshew at the start of the season, but the bigger regret was not choosing Turner as the offensive coordinator in the first place. The Raiders had their reasons for bypassing Turner, but it would have been interesting to see what he could have done with the offense if he had an entire offseason to prepare.
The offense turned a corner after the bye week (which coincided with the firing of Getsy), and it’s fair to wonder where the offense would be right now if the 2024 offseason had played out a little differently from a coaching standpoint.
x: @raidersbeat
It would have looked pretty much the same . The defense won most of the those games last year for AOC. The defense was a mash unit a couple weeks into this season this year. AOC has to continue to learn to move appropriately in the pocket and have high quality oline play. If those things happen he can be a more consistent winner I think , even without the stellar defensive play. I don’t know if that’s good enough to beat the top qb in the playoffs though…and there are a lot of them in the afc now.
Humm, okay, let me tell about the story of Dan Pastoreni and Jim Plunkett…..LMMFAO
He’s looked better the last two games, but we must take into account that it was against two bottom tier teams. It will not be any different this weekend with the Bolts probably resting most the starters. It would be ANOTHER mistake by ownership to anoint AOC starting QB for next season, and retain AP as HC, based on these last three games.
And the Chiefs are also inferior?
The truth is that with this unfortunate choice we have wasted a year without really knowing what the true value of AOC is!
And now to bleed ourselves dry to take a QB in the draft who maybe will then turn out to be worse than him, would be a catastrophe
Not trying to lure Baker from TB seems like the bigger problem or not trading with Wash for J.Daniels seems like the bigger problem or not hiring Kingsbury seems like the bigger problem or not trading for J.Fields seems like the bigger problem. The biggest problem was going with AP and Telesco instead of Harbaugh and Horitz. The only thing that Telesco could have brought to the team was a trade for J.Herbert, he didn’t and then thought G.Minshew was a starting NFL QB and paid him like that instead of BU money. And then he got a vote as to who should start the season as QB1. So don’t try and say it was on Gutless Getsy and think we didn’t pay attention. There’s only 1 way to fix the **** problem at this point,hire Ben Johnson and someone like John Dorsey or someone else that comes from a winning organization not someone from a team like the flipping Chargers prior to Harbaugh.
We need to tank the charger game as much as I hate to say it because all the other teams are tanking!
Tanking is for losers. Don’t be ca loser. Don’t support losing. And for goodness sake don’t let the Raiders become willing losers on your watch.