CINCINNATI — Though there are eight games left to play, the Las Vegas Raiders’ 2024 season is already over. It’s fair to criticize coach Antonio Pierce and his staff for that, but the truth is this roster is just bad.
That was painfully on display throughout the Raiders’ lopsided 41-24 loss at the hands of the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday. They simply don’t have the players to field a quality team this year.
At 2-7, the Raiders are tied with six other teams for the worst record in the NFL as they head into their Week 10 bye. They’re rapidly barreling toward a high first-round pick in the 2025 draft.
“Today wasn’t a good day in the office,” Pierce said Sunday. “We’ve got the bye week to reset. We’ll look at everything. And when I say everything, (I mean) everything.”
🔴📽️ Live: Coach Antonio Pierce addresses the media. https://t.co/cwHzpBhRpt
— Las Vegas Raiders (@Raiders) November 3, 2024
It didn’t take long for the Raiders to make a change. Late Sunday night, hours after the team posted a shameful 217 yards of offense against the Bengals, the team fired offensive coordinator Luke Getsy, offensive line coach James Cregg and quarterbacks coach Rich Scangarello after just nine games.
“There’s been a lot of opportunities for us to score points and make opportunities,” Pierce said last week. “And, yeah, that’s on the play caller. But then also … it’s all of us. It’s easy to sit here and just point the finger at Luke or myself, but you look at O-line play, quarterbacks, running backs, turnovers, missed blocks, missed executions on plays, alignments on details. All those things have got to get cleaned up. So, yeah, it does start with the coordinator. He’s got to be the one that takes the fall for that and gets most of the blame. But it is collective.”
The Raiders have been brutalized by injuries. They were already without defensive tackle Christian Wilkins, quarterback Aidan O’Connell, defensive end Malcolm Koonce, safety Marcus Epps, center Andre James and tight end Michael Mayer this week. Then they lost five more players due to injury Sunday: left tackle Kolton Miller, backup left tackle Andrus Peat, left guard Cody Whitehair, nickelback Nate Hobbs and tight end Harrison Bryant.
“There’s more opportunities for somebody else to step up,” Pierce said. “Regardless of how it is and where it goes, it’s just the nature of the beast. That’s what’s happening to us right now. Nobody feels sorry for us, and we don’t feel sorry for ourselves.”
These Raiders were never built to endure that type of roster attrition. That’s partially due to several years of poor drafting, free-agent signings and trades, but general manager Tom Telesco also shoulders some blame.
Telesco put together a strong rookie class that includes tight end Brock Bowers, guard/center Jackson Powers-Johnson and right tackle DJ Glaze, and he signed Wilkins away from the Miami Dolphins, but he otherwise took a measured approach to building the roster this offseason. The Raiders still have over $34.5 million in cap space, according to Over the Cap, because Telesco didn’t aggressively pursue veteran talent last offseason.
The only other significant free-agent signing Telesco made? It was not only his worst, but it came at the game’s most important position: quarterback Gardner Minshew II. Minshew leads the league in turnovers and has been benched three times in nine games. He was replaced by O’Connell in Weeks 3 and 5 but took back the reins in Week 7 after O’Connell suffered a broken thumb. Minshew’s return as the starter proved short-lived as he was benched for Desmond Ridder late in the third quarter Sunday after completing 10 of 17 passes for just 124 yards. He has been nothing short of a disaster for the Raiders.
Minshew beat out O’Connell for the starting job in training camp but played poorly to start the season, which was a driving force behind receiver Davante Adams’ trade request that resulted in a move to the New York Jets last month. Things have only deteriorated from there as the Raiders have lost five games in a row, suffered a series of injuries and shuffled hopelessly through three quarterbacks.
“I mean, it sucks to lose five in a row,” defensive end Maxx Crosby said. “There’s nothing to say. We’ve got to show up and get better and work. That’s all we can do is control the controllables.”
The NFL trade deadline is Tuesday. As bad as things have gotten, however, the Raiders aren’t planning on blowing things up. Crosby is off limits in trade discussions, according to team sources, and the team doesn’t have many other healthy players that other teams would be interested in acquiring. And, at this point, it doesn’t make sense for them to trade assets and add players. That’s why the Raiders are expected to stand pat, team sources told The Athletic.
“That’s probably a Telesco question,” Pierce said when asked about the trade deadline. “I’m sure there’s options there. We’ll see what we can do.”
In the meantime, the players on the roster must forge ahead. The locker room was understandably somber after the loss to the Bengals, but the players denied there was any lack of effort.
“It’s character,” guard Powers-Johnson said. “We can sit down and quit. We can just put our tails between our legs and walk out. Or we can fight and try and score. I know there’s going to be a lot of people calling for people’s heads, but what you see there of us trying to fight and score and not giving up, that’s what I’m going to take out of (Sunday’s) game. … We fought. We didn’t give up. I’m positive about that. That stems from AP. … No business decisions were made.”
The locker room can certainly see that things are headed in the wrong direction, but the players haven’t lost faith in Pierce. This isn’t a situation like last year when the roster had clearly checked out under former coach Josh McDaniels.
That doesn’t guarantee things will get better anytime soon, but it still carries value when it comes to the long-term outlook. That’s something Pierce can point to even if the losses continue to pile up. As a shot at the playoffs slips away, pride will likely soon be the Raiders’ primary motivator.
“It’s about the culture,” Hobbs said when asked what keeps players going. “It’s about who you are as a man.”
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Looking ahead to next offseason, Telesco will have plenty of resources to attempt to improve the roster. The Raiders own all of their picks in the 2025 draft and will have either an extra second- or third-round pick from the Jets depending on whether the conditions of the Adams trade are met.
Telesco and company are also projected to have over $108.1 million in cap space in 2025, according to Over the Cap. The Raiders have a glut of free agents they could bring back — Koonce, Hobbs, Epps, linebackers Divine Deablo and Robert Spillane, defensive tackles John Jenkins and Adam Butler, receiver DJ Turner, safety Isaiah Pola-Mao and guard Jordan Meredith — but they should still have plenty of cap space to make outside additions, as well.
Quarterback will receive the most attention, but other positions of need for the Raiders include the offensive line, running back and receiver. They could also look to add on the defensive line, at linebacker and at safety depending on which free agents they let walk. It goes without saying, but it’s highly unlikely the Raiders will be able to check all of those boxes in one offseason.
This is a word that Raiders fans are surely tired of hearing since they’ve gone 22 (soon to be 23) years since their last playoff win, but this will require a rebuild.
Pierce and the coaching staff will continue to take heat, but the root of the Raiders’ issue is that they’ve comprehensively failed at building a sustainable roster over the last two decades. Unless that changes, owner Mark Davis may soon find himself beginning yet another search for a new general manager and coach.
(Photo: Dylan Buell / Getty Images)
