The Las Vegas Raiders enter this offseason as a team with numerous questions to answer.
While many positions on the roster need help, quarterback stands out as the most desperate need. The Raiders have faceplanted the last two seasons in large part due to mediocre-at-best play under center, and last season’s failure to find a franchise quarterback resulted in the firings of former head coach Antonio Pierce and general manager Tom Telesco. In order to prevent a similar butterfly effect, the new regime of Pete Carroll and John Spytek must find their guy to lead the Raiders back to the promised land.
The currently anticipated course of action is to draft a quarterback with the sixth overall pick, but Sports Illustrated’s Hondo Carpenter arrived at a different conclusion.
Carpenter suggests that sources around the league believe the Raiders are interested in trading for Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy if he becomes available.
“I am hearing from people who would absolutely know that Sam [Darnold] would absolutely be desirous before going to another team to stay in Minnesota and that he would be willing to take a good deal for the Vikings,” Carpenter said. “If that were to happen and the Vikings were to resign him, that would open the door for a potential trade for J.J. McCarthy. I believe in talking to people from around the league, that if J.J. McCarthy were to become available, the Raiders would absolutely have interest. That is coming from people around the league.”
Needless to say, the Raiders would not hesitate to pick up the phone and call the Vikings if McCarthy hits the trade market.
Many draft experts consider McCarthy as a superior prospect to Miami’s Cam Ward and Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders, who are the top quarterback prospects in this year’s draft class. Injuries ended McCarthy’s rookie season in Minnesota before they even began, but all signs point to him being ready to go for the start of next season. Landing a franchise quarterback this way would give the Raiders some breathing room, with McCarthy’s rookie contract giving the team the cap flexibility to upgrade other parts of the roster.
That being said, it is still unclear what the Vikings are going to do.
Darnold had a tremendous season with the team, but implosions in the season finale against the Detroit Lions and the Wild Card game against the Los Angeles Rams created doubt. The Vikings will have to decide for themselves if this is their ceiling with Darnold and, if that is the case, they would be better off hanging on to McCarthy.
This decision from the Vikings carries severe implications on the NFL offseason, and the Raiders are shaping up as one of the teams most affected by the answer.
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