Through five games of the 2025 NFL season, it has become clear that the Las Vegas Raiders do not have a roster that can compete in the AFC West. In the NFL, it's all about how you stack up against your divisional foes, and the Raiders have the worst quarterback and defense among them yet again.
Geno Smith was brought in to be the solution in Las Vegas, but he has arguably been the biggest part of the problem. Unfortunately, the team gave him a two-year, $75 million contract before he ever played a down, so they may feel a bit tied to him.
However, there is an obvious way out. While drafting a young quarterback in next year's draft may be a bit of a cure-all for this franchise, that wouldn't solve the issue of Smith's hefty contract. That, unfortunately, can only be solved by copying what the Denver Broncos did with Russell Wilson.
Raiders must do to Geno Smith what Broncos did to Russell Wilson
Ever since winning the Super Bowl in 2015 with Peyton Manning, the Broncos had been hovering at and below mediocrity. Weak quarterback play was the main reason for this, so they decided enough was enough and made a blockbuster trade for Russell Wilson.
Upon his arrival, he signed a five-year, $242.6 million extension, which was among the biggest contracts in the league at that time. Wilson proceeded to play his worst football for the next two seasons, so the Broncos were in a bind as it pertained to his massive deal.
Instead of sticking it out with him and hoping that an aging quarterback would eventually turn the corner, or bending over backward to try and build a sufficient team around him, they did the difficult, but ultimately, the right thing: admit that they were wrong.
Denver called it quits on Wilson with just a few weeks left in his second season, taking on a dead cap hit of $85 million. This was not only the biggest dead cap hit in league history, but more than twice as big as the next closest figure.
Obviously, the Raiders just need to bite the bullet and do the same with Smith. It should be painfully clear to everyone in the building that he is not the long-term answer at quarterback, so the team just needs to cut its losses and start over.
Smith's dead cap hit would only be $18.5 million, according to Spotrac, as the team built an out into his contract after 2026. If they can find a trade partner for him, which is unlikely, they wouldn't owe him a dime. But they'll save $8 million against the 2027 cap as well by moving on from him.
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It may seem a bit harsh to give him just one season, or careless to take on such a big dead cap hit when the roster has so many holes. But finding the right quarterback is more important than anything else on the football field. Just look at the Broncos.
Raider Nation is no big believer in Bo NIx, but the results speak for themselves after he took over for Wilson. Denver made the playoffs in Nix's first season at the helm, and the Broncos are tied atop the AFC West in 2025 as well. This all occurred just after the Wilson fiasco, while still footing the bill for him as well.
Nix may not be a high-ceiling player, but he has at least provided hope and led the team to a winning record under his watch. This should prove to the Raiders, once again, that getting a young quarterback in the draft should be priority No. 1.
Las Vegas could learn from Denver in this as well, because Broncos fans know just how many first-round quarterbacks they whiffed on until they found one that they can win with. The Raiders haven't taken a quarterback in the first round since JaMarcus Russell in 2007, but that must change in 2026.
There are a few key distinctions between these two cases, as Broncos head coach Sean Payton inherited Wilson, and Raiders head coach Pete Carroll went out and got Smith. Carroll will, in turn, be way more forgiving of Smith than Payton ever was of Wilson.
But the Raiders cannot continue to just keep putting a Band-Aid on the most important position on the football field. This is not a Kirk Cousins situation with the Atlanta Falcons, where the team already has a promising player under center and no real way out of the veteran's contract.
They have to start fresh with a young quarterback and admit that they were wrong with Smith, and that starts by copying the Broncos-Russell Wilson model. Only then can this franchise start moving in the right direction.