Hope you're not burned out on Raiders QB gossip! But if you are, this is the best place for you to stop and keep your sanity intact. I won't take it personally.
After a week of very fun, very exciting debate on whether Gardnew Minshew has already lost his starting job in Week 3, there's a new Raiders' QB wrinkle to get angry about. This one has nothing to do with Minshew, or Aidan O'Connell, or anyone even on the roster. This one is about a quarterback who the Raiders could have gotten, but didn't. And if you can believe it, this quarterback's now starting for one of the AFC's best teams.
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It all, of course, comes from a Player Podcast. This one specifically? Pittsburgh's Cam Heyward, who had Justin Fields on recently to talk about, among other things, the teams that thought about trading for him this past spring. Do the Raiders make a cameo appearance? You bet they do!
Justin Fields claims Raiders tried to trade for him this past offseason
"I'm not sure of all the teams, but there were already teams that had solidified quarterbacks there," he said. "And I didn't want to do that. I think Chargers were one, Ravens were another. Raiders, they talked a little bit, I don't know too much. A lot of teams already had solidified quarterbacks that just got new contracts, so I wasn't really trying to be there because I kind of know how that shakes out."
The Chargers?! Huh? Granted, it's not like Fields' stats are that good – he's still not really pushing the ball down field, and while he has done better throwing in the middle of the field – something he struggled with in Chicago – he's still not doing it a ton. Among all starting QBs, Fields currently ranks 21st in QBR, 14th in EPA/play, 4th (!) in CPOE, and 25th in success rate. Through the first three games, it kinda seems like Fields is exactly who we all expected Fields to be under Mike Tomlin: a well-coached QB that definitely has improved, but still has pretty glaring flaws.
Is that any better than Minshew and/or O'Connell? TBD! (Probably, yes.) And you can't really blame Fields for not wanting to spend another year with Luke Getsy. You can't blame anyone for that.