I guess it shouldn't be surprising that the Raiders got everyone's attention this week. After pulling off maybe the best win of the early NFL season in Baltimore on Sunday, the Raiders made quite the impression, reminding people that their defense is legit and that maybe, just maybe, they're not going to be as bad as everyone thinks.
What the win also did, apparently, was make everyone revist the Raiders' roster decisions. The NFL as a whole is just now starting to realize that the team may only be a quarterback away from legitimately making things tough on the Chiefs in the AFC West – which means that everyone now has ideas on how they can upgrade the position. Big name midseason trades aren't the norm in the NFL, but that doesn't mean they don't happen occasionally. There is one quarterback – albeit not as exciting as Stafford – that the Raiders could get for mere pennies on the dollar, if that. And he'll be *in* Vegas this weekend!
The Raiders are the perfect spot for a Bryce Young reclamation project
It's Bryce Young. Please stop yelling at me. Young's time as the Panthers starting quarterback is definitely over, and his time even being employed by the Panthers at all is probably wrapping up as well. It has been an absolute disaster from basically the moment he arrived in Charlotte, and even if he takes a few weeks to reset, it sounds like the Panthers handled the move so poorly that he's not interested in being around either. Enter the Las Vegas Raiders.
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I want to be clear: Bryce Young has yet to show even a glimpse of NFL-caliber quarterback play. Even if the Raiders did trade for him, it would probably end more-or-less the same way things ended with the Panthers – he's not getting any taller in the next year. But as far as the value of a deal goes, teams very rarely – if ever – get a chance to trade for last year's first overall pick at such a low price. Young would cost them a late-round draft pick at the most, and equally bad QBs have been traded for more.
Also: the Panthers are terrible. They're a legitimately awful team. With the Raiders, Young would get a decent offensive line, a MVP-caliber receiver, and a tight end who already looks like one of the 4-5 best at his position. Add a stellar defense to the equation, with a head coach who's universally beloved by the locker room, and you actually have the type of environment that struggling young QBs thrive in. Even playing in Luke Getsy's kinda-bland-but-ultimatey-efficient offensive gameplanning, which is heavy on run-first ideology, would make sense.
Granted, that's a lot of squinting just to see the vision, but if the Raiders are secretly already OK with a seven win season anyways, what's the harm in trying to win those seven games with a QB that actually has the potential to be a franchise guy? If it goes terribly, Shedeur Sanders will arrive in April.