The Denver Broncos should have an easy time against the Las Vegas Raiders in the 2024 NFL Season after they made this hilarious announcement. Just take a look for yourself:
The #Raiders are naming Gardner Minshew their starting QB, per sources.
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) August 18, 2024
Coach Antonio Pierce just informed the QBs of his decision after a camp battle between Minshew and Aidan O’Connell.
Minshew Mania continues in Las Vegas, which opens Sept. 8 vs. the #Chargers. pic.twitter.com/3E2zLgcOJA
There was a "camp battle" between Gardner Minshew and Aidan O'Connell, which has ended in Minshew being named the starter of the Raiders, a team that has had some dysfunction at QB ever since dumping Derek Carr a couple of seasons ago.
Minshew is a journeyman QB at this point who has had starts with several teams across the NFL since his first year back in 2019. He's played 49 regular season games in the NFL, starting 37 of them. He's thrown 59 touchdowns aginst 24 interceptions, most recently tossing 15 TDs against 9 INTs with the Indianapolis Colts back in 2023.
His career passer rating of 90.2 is respectable, but it's clear that Minshew is a high-end backup, and for the loaded AFC, that simply is not good enough. The Denver Broncos should be able to take advantage of the Raiders huge weakness at QB in the 2024 NFL Season.
Gardner Minshew has beaten the Broncos in Denver, though, and that came back in the 2019 NFL Season when he was with the Jaguars. However, Minshew is further along in his career and has not been able to climb to anything higher than being a high-end backup player.
The Broncos defense should be licking their chops at the idea of going up against Minshew two times this year. He was able to earn the starting job over their other QB, Aidan O'Connell. And for the Raiders, this is clearly them living with the consequences of their own actions, as they missed out on all six first-round QBs in 2024.
And by not coming away with a top QB prospect, they essentially admitted that 2024 isn't going to be much of anything for them. With how bad the Raiders will likely be in 2024, they should be in line to pick in the top-5 of the 2025 NFL Draft. The Denver Broncos can now look at themselves as being a year ahead of the Las Vegas Raiders being that they project to start Bo Nix, so this should be a huge line in the sand of the Broncos making a huge stride in the AFC West.