For the Raiders, the season ended with 4-13. They had a 10-game losing streak before winning the week 16 & 17 games. Had they not, they would have been at the bottom of their conference. For the head coach, Antonio Pierce, the fundamental challenge was to find the quarterback who could lead them. He used 3 QBs in rotation, but nothing stopped their disastrous season.

Even now that the season has ended, the team hasn’t finalized the name of their QB no.1. Speaking in the end-of-the-season conference, the HC hinted that Aidan O’Connell might be their guy. He said, “I think with Aidan, you’re seeing is somebody that’s finally played 17 games. That was his seventh game as a starter. I think you gotta look at just the whole platform of it, not one time. Obviously, he’s still working on mobility. There’s work for a young player.” That’s huge praise from the coach.

Gardner Minshew was the first choice of Antonio Pierce. But as the season progressed, he started using Aidan O’Connell. When both were injured, he turned to Desmond Ridder. Let’s compare their performance this year.

Name	Games Played	Games Started	Passes Completed	Passes Attempted	Pass completion rate (in %)	Passing Yards	Touchdowns	Interceptions	Rating
Gardner Minshew	10	9	203	306	66.3	2,013	9	10	81
Aidan O’Connell	9	7	154	243	63.4	1,612	8	4	86.6
Desmond Ridder	5	1	52	85	61.2	458	2	2	73.6

While Minshew has the most experience among the three, he had 10 interceptions and a 2-7 win-loss record. During the week 11 game against the

Broncos, he broke his collarbone, ending his season. But his high TD-INT ratio concerned Antonio Pierce, who substituted him after week 5.

On similar notes, Aidan O’Connell showed wonderful performances during the games, particularly against the

Chiefs. He had 23 of 35 passes in 340 passing yards with 2 touchdowns. That was when Patrick Mahomes recorded 26 of 46 passes in 306 passing yards with touchdowns. However, the Raiders have many big decisions to take.

Antonio Pierce is confident of retaining his job

With a 4-13 record, it was a poor performance than last year. In 2023, after firing Josh McDaniels in week 8, they promoted AP to the head coach. He won 5 and lost 4 games. This year, it didn’t happen. But he was confident of holding his job and said, “I haven’t been told anything different. It’s only coming from outside, not inside the building. So to me, there’s nothing to clean up until I hear from inside the building.”

There are contrary claims about Antonio Pierce retaining his job. But the franchise has made no announcement yet. Fans are interested to see how Tom Brady will change things at the franchise. Expect some key changes for the quarterback, either in training or strategy.

We are seeing changes across different franchises. The Patriots didn’t waste time to fire Jerod Mayo and look for new coaches. The Bears are requesting interviews with different coaches. But the Raiders are calm. They want to deal with things at their own pace.