Finally, the answer that everyone's waiting for is here. The collective NFL world has waited, with baited breath, all weekend to see how the Las Vegas Raiders' quarterback depth chart would shake out. Las Vegas' seismic Monday Night Football matchup against the Falcons has arrived, and with it, maybe the news of the NFL season.
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According to ESPN's Adam Schefter, the plan – as of Monday morning, at least – is to start Desmond Ridder. There were whispers that Aidan O'Connell, who was thought to be lost for the season barely a week ago, only for everyone to be *extremely* wrong about that, may get the start – but that doesn't sound particularly likely at this point. O'Connell's going to test his knee during pregame warmups, but Schefter's phrasing makes it seem like the team's leaning heavily towards Ridder.
Desmond Ridder is the Raiders' QB1 against the Falcons on Monday Night Football
Raiders QB Desmond Ridder is expected to start tonight vs. the Falcons, per sources. Raiders QB Aidan O’Connell is listed as questionable and is expected to work out pregame to see if he can play, but Ridder is expected to start for now.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) December 16, 2024
Hot take: this is good, and fun. Did anyone really need to see anything more from O'Connell this season? At best, he'll be the Raiders' backup next year – and it's probably just as likely that he's not on the roster next year at all. Mark Davis reportedly has told the Raiders' front office that they have a bit of a mandate to take a QB in this year's draft – something he denied last week – but anyone who even follows the NFL a little bit knows that the Shedeur Sanders-Raiders romance is very real. One more average performance from O'Connell wasn't ever going to change that.
Instead, we have a Desmond Ridder revenge game. And if we're forced to watch the two-win Raiders on national television this late in the year, that's the kind of silly narrative I want to have going into the game. That's good for, at the very least, 1.5 quarters of interesting football. And if it gets boring, just simply turn off the TV and continue living your life. That's the beauty of televisions – they're so easy to turn off. But now we have a juicy narrative to follow along with for 90 minutes after dinner; at this point in the season, that's about all we could have asked for. It beats watching Bears-Vikings. (Right?)