The Las Vegas Raiders bet heavily on veteran quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo in the offseason and it is turning out to be perhaps the worst decision of the NFL season.
The Raiders lost to the Detroit Lions on Monday Night Football 26-14 and a national audience got to see just how bad a decision it was by head coach Josh McDaniels and general manager Dave Ziegler.
Garoppolo, who finished the night completing just 10 passes for 126 yards and no touchdowns, came out of the gate looking worse than an undrafted free-agent rookie.
Just how bad was he in the first half?
Garoppolo failed to complete a pass to a wide receiver and finished the first two quarters 3-of-8 for just 31 yards, an interception and a comical 9.9 quarterback ranking.
Earlier in the first half, after Robert Spillane recovered the first Raiders fumble of the season deep inside Lions territory, Garoppolo threw an interception in the end zone on the very next play trying to find Davante Adams. The safety read the play the entire time and Garoppolo made an egregious error, resulting in the turnover.
To put it simply. If the Raiders want to win another football game in 2023, it’s time to own their mistake and turn over the offense to fourth-round rookie Aidan O’Connell. They simply couldn’t do worse than Garoppolo.
A case of denial about Jimmy Garoppolo
After the game, McDaniels was reminded that Garoppolo leads the league in interceptions with nine despite not playing in two-plus games. The coach wouldn’t specifically blame Garoppolo.
“There’s a lot of things that go into that,” McDaniels said. “I just want to make sure I say that. Protection, route, reads, throws, catches, all that stuff. But at the end of the day, we have to be able to take care of the ball and we don’t fumble. We haven’t fumbled this year.”
McDaniels can’t own up to his mistake out of hubris or sheer pride. He hasn’t once said Garoppolo isn’t performing up to the standards expected of an NFL starter — let alone one who has played for 10 seasons.
Despite knowing the quarterback is the most important position on the field, and the Raiders’ offense continues to languish as one of the worst in the league, primarily because Garoppolo has played poorly, McDaniels won’t admit it.
“I think you have to look at a lot of things,” he said. “If it was one thing, you know, one thing that we needed to just a little bit better then that would be simple. I think it’s a combination of a lot of little things.”
Having Garoppolo as your starting quarterback, turning the ball over, making bad decisions and failing to use the full complement of weapons are not little things. The Raiders aren’t even close to being a good offensive football team despite a $104 million investment on that side of the ball.
The coach is always quick to mention over and over again how players must do their jobs for the Raiders to execute and win. Coaches must do the same.
McDaniels will not admit a big part of the problem is the quarterback he brought in after running Derek Carr out of town. That’s on him.
Related: Las Vegas Raiders’ Josh McDaniels and NFL coaches on the hot seat
Jimmy Garoppolo doesn’t have answers
The lingering struggles of Garoppolo continue to stunt any progress or consistency on the Raiders’ offense and things don’t appear to be headed in a positive direction. Besides missing games and the turnovers, Garoppolo chalked up his latest stinker by just saying he had a bad day.
“You have good days and bad days, today was just a bad day,” Garoppolo said. “No sugarcoating it. I just got to play better.”
Yes, that’s the understatement of the season.
Still, the player will always try to forget about a rough performance and learn from it to improve. But if he isn’t getting better, the coach is paid to make those calls and do what’s best for his team moving forward. Garoppolo appears unable to fix even small things to improve his performance and therein lies the rub.
Related: Ranking Jimmy Garoppolo among the NFL’s 32 starting QBs
Defense was the Las Vegas Raiders’ best offense
Although the Raiders’ defense kept them in the game until the third quarter, they tired and the Lions could run away with the game late. This is despite Detriot struggling on offense in the first half. The Raiders’ defense had a pick six thanks to Marcus Peter and two forced fumbles but. It just wasn’t enough.
They also wasted a remarkable performance by Maxx Crosby. Returning to his home state of Michigan for the first time, Crosby left everything on the field. He finished the night with eight tackles, one for a loss and a quarterback hit. I can only imagine what he feels inside the true heart of a competitor.
You simply can’t win games in the NFL with a quarterback playing as poorly as Garoppolo. You don’t have to be an NFL personnel professional to see it’s simply a dumpster fire in Las Vegas for McDaniels.
Garoppolo, despite missing two and a half games due to injury, leads the NFL in interceptions and has thrown just seven touchdowns. In Detriot, he finished with just four passes over 10 yards. He found Adams just one time on five targets. If Garoppolo gives the Raiders the best chance to win, they have no chance.
McDaniels made the point the Raiders have a lot to fix on their offense and he is correct. Yet, it’s biggest problem is something he just won’t address.
His inability to do so spell doom for the Raiders this season and could cost him his job. He’s 3-11 in road games as the Raiders’ head coach and the schedule will only get tougher as the season goes on.
Until the Raiders get better quarterback play out of Garoppolo or someone else, you can bet there will be more games like we witnessed on Monday night.