In an ugly football game that those who didn't have to watch won't regret not watching, the Denver Broncos eked out a 10-7 win over the Las Vegas Raiders on Thursday Night Football to open Week 10 of the NFL schedule.
The Raiders scored zero points after their second drive, and the Broncos didn't register a first down until there were about five minutes to go in the first half. When it came down to it, the Silver and Black simply made more mistakes than the home team did.
On the November 7 edition of his radio show, The Herd, notable analyst Colin Cowherd of FOX Sports devoted some time to talking about the ugly football game that occurred the previous night. He tends to offer hot takes, but this time, he provided a dose of reality when talking about the Raiders.
Colin Cowherd gives offers a simple, yet harsh reality about the Raiders
Cowherd's infatuation with Sam Darnold is well-documented at this point. So he went there, in light of the Seattle Seahawks' successful pivot from Smith to Darnold, and the Raiders reportedly not having a high level of interest in signing Darnold this offseason.
"The Raiders, they overpaid, over-pursued Geno Smith, who once again leads the NFL in picks," Cowherd said. "I mean, he can’t figure out basic pass protection. It’s bad. And right now, he’s arguably the worst quarterback in the league. The last two years, Geno Smith has seven more interceptions than the next highest interception quarterback. So it’s one thing to settle at quarterback. You should never settle at quarterback. It’s another to pursue the wrong one."
Cowherd highlighted how it's fair to assume only the Raiders, with Pete Carroll obviously being the driving force for the move, would have given up a third-round pick for Smith. Cowherd then talked about Carroll, telling the world what Raiders' fans have already learned the hard way.
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"Pete Carroll had a full year away from football to modernize, to reflect, to look in the mirror, to take stock, to evaluate everything. And he went back to Geno Smith. That ain’t good," Cowherd said. "I mean, that’s old school Geno Smith. 27 picks in the last two years, seven more than the next guy. So the Raiders have earned fourth place (in the AFC West). And the modern NFL, if you are tone deaf to quarterback, you’re tone deaf to winning."
This is a pretty brutal takedown of Las Vegas' veteran coach, but it may be well-warranted based on the results through nine games. The Raiders are 2-7 and don't have the most promising future on paper. Cowherd continued with his rant.
"And again, it’s not like Geno didn’t have a resume. You didn’t need to go to West Virginia sophomore year to look at film. You could have gone to last year, and Pete had a year off to reflect. Offensively, I don’t even know what the Raiders are," Cowherd said.
What the Raiders are offensively is bad. Like, alongside the worst offenses in franchise history, bad. Offensive coordinator Chip Kelly deserves a good share of blame for that, but it really starts with the performance of the quarterback. And at the core of it all, there's the head coach who shouldn't have been so willing to go back to the well with said quarterback.