Aidan O'Connell's ceiling compared to fan favorite QB: PFF

Even though Aidan O'Connell showed some promising flashes as a rookie, the Las Vegas Raiders likely don't have a franchise quarterback on their roster. However, the team doesn't need a franchise quarterback to get back to the playoffs.

It remains to be seen whether it will be Gardner Minshew or O'Connell who is the starting quarterback but there's a lot of momentum for the latter. Many would like to see the second-year quarterback start and Pro Football Focus dropped which quarterback could be O'Connell's ceiling.

"Even last season, we saw a similar story with the Raiders. O’Connell earned an unremarkable 65.9 PFF overall grade, but within that season was an elite 85.5 PFF game grade (against the Super Bowl-winning Chiefs) and another two high-end games of 79.0 and 75.2," Monson wrote. "It also featured game grades of 39.8 and 51.7.

"O’Connell could potentially become the next Ryan Fitzpatrick — a quarterback on the borderline of being an NFL starter yet one capable of catching fire and going on a run of high-level play. When that player catches the low end of his variance, he gets relegated back to backup status and often bumped from the roster entirely, forced to move on to a new team to begin the cycle anew."

Fitzpatrick had a long career as a journeyman quarterback and even had some really good years. Can the Raiders win a Super Bowl with a quarterback like that? Probably not but they could at least be interesting.

It's most likely that O'Connell won't spend his entire career in Las Vegas. The team will go all-in on a potential franchise quarterback at some point but it's easy to O'Connell having a long career bouncing around the NFL. Fitzpatrick was never a Pro Bowler but he was able to play until he was 39 so O'Connell likely wouldn't mind being able to stick around and play football for so long.