The Las Vegas Raiders are clearly starved for a quarterback. The Geno Smith experiment has all but failed through seven games of the 2025 NFL season, and neither Kenny Pickett nor Aidan O'Connell is a viable option, as both are likely to be career backups.
With a 2026 college quarterback class that is getting mixed reviews, at best, the Raiders may not find their future signal-caller next April. Plus, there is no guarantee that Las Vegas would be in a position to select a player of the caliber of Indiana's Fernando Mendoza or Alabama's Ty Simpson anyway.
Although Raider Nation is largely in the camp of the team simply selecting a quarterback in the draft -- something they haven't done since 2007, when they took JaMarcus Russell with the No. 1 pick -- ESPN just proposed a crazy idea that could actually work, even if not in the way they intended.
ESPN's proposes Raiders bail out Dolphins by taking Tua Tagovailoa
On Wednesday evening, ESPN's Seth Walder analyzed the state of each NFL team, including their key positions of need, players who could be on the move, and who could be targeted by each franchise. Walder listed a shocking player for the Raiders to target.
"Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. Hear me out. This is the Brock Osweiler trade on steroids. The Raiders currently have $103 million and $174 million in 2026 and 2027 cap space, respectively. What I would propose here is the Dolphins send a 2026 second-round pick and 2027 second-round pick along with Tagovailoa in exchange for a 2027 fifth-round pick," Walden wrote. "If that trade happened next week, Las Vegas would keep Tagovailoa through 2026 at a cost of roughly $70 million over that time, the vast majority fully guaranteed. It would get the Dolphins out of their tight cap situation so they can reset and rebuild, and it would be a more efficient use of resources for Las Vegas -- regardless of whether Tagovailoa ever takes the field for them or not."
What?? Okay, this sounds a bit crazy. But it could work, even if Tagovailoa ends up being the same quarterback in Las Vegas that he's been in Miami. After all, despite having a better historical track record than Smith, Tagovailoa is tied with him for the NFL lead with 10 interceptions.
Tagovailoa has also played one more game, but he's thrown twice as many touchdowns, taken fewer sacks, has a higher completion percentage and more passing yards. But this is not an argument to be made for the Raiders or the fan base to want Tagovailoa, as he'd likely be a disaster in Las Vegas.
This is an argument to be made for acquiring two additional second-round picks for the mere price of a fifth-rounder. Of course, the financial component is a concern, especially if he's a backup, as he and Smith cannot both start. But moving off Smith's contract is not as difficult or penalizing as most think.
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If they can find a trade partner for him at any point, the Raiders will owe Smith nothing. If they release him before next season, they'll have a $18.5 million dead cap hit, but they'll also save $8 million against the cap in 2026.
There is a chance that if Smith keeps playing the way that he has, then releasing or trading him will be his fate anyway. Either his contract or dead cap hit and Tagovailoa's contract would eat up a lot of cap space, but general manager John Spytek has proven that he's not a big spender on the open market.
Las Vegas desperately needs to infuse young talent into the building. Technically, Tagovailoa is quite a bit younger than Smith, but more importantly, premier draft picks like the two second-rounders the Raiders got in this proposed deal, along with him, would easily be worth pulling the trigger.
Essentially, this would be two bad teams bailing each other out. The Dolphins badly need to move on from Tagovailoa's contract and would be willing to give up picks to do so, and the Raiders would gladly take those picks and absorb the contract, given that they are flush with cap space.
Again, Tagovailoa wouldn't be the answer under center in Las Vegas. But he can't be much worse than Smith, and two extra second-round picks would give the Raiders a chance to add several elite young players and potentially move up to select an actual difference-maker at quarterback.
The Raiders are already arguably the worst team in the league, and if they won't trade Maxx Crosby for a mountain of picks, then this might be the best that they can do. Because it's the Raiders, fans automatically assume the worst. But this might be crazy enough to work.