To have a 2-11 record as a professional football team, some very bad decisions need to be made along the way. Of course, major injuries can play a factor, but the Las Vegas Raiders' fatal flaw ahead of the 2025 NFL season was pairing Geno Smith with Pete Carroll.
The former has been up there with the league's worst quarterbacks in terms of high turnover rate, missed opportunities and a general lack of production. The latter has made several questionable choices both in-game and when it comes to personnel.
Raider Nation has become exhausted picking on every mistake that these two make, and there is still a quarter of the season left to go. But former offensive lineman Richie Incognito continues to make his feelings known about the team's decision-making, and he did so again after Week 14.
Richie Incognito has his opinions on Raiders' personnel choices
Although Las Vegas came up short against the Denver Broncos, there were actually a handful of positives from the contest. The most obvious was backup quarterback Kenny Pickett having a strong showing, and Incognito cast his support for the young signal-caller, declaring it "Kenny Pickett szn."
Of course, the fan base has been clamoring for a change at quarterback since the early portion of the season, but that always felt futile considering the relationship between Carroll and Smith. More realistic, however, was the Raiders playing their rookies as the year continued to get away from them.
But Carroll and Co. clearly had some apprehension about that, too. Injuries have thrust several young players into the lineup as of late, most notably third-round rookie guard Caleb Rogers, who had an incredible showing against the Broncos on Sunday.
One Raiders fan posted Rogers' stats from the contest on social media, to which Incognito responded that Rogers "had a bad practice" in sarcastic air quotes. This is a reference to a report that was leaked from the building in Las Vegas.
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In that report, it was said that Rogers was so bad in practice that it wouldn't be fair to his teammates to throw him out there in a game, even as the interior offensive line injuries piled up. Rogers initially told reporters that week that he was starting, but then he was a healthy scratch.
Rogers had been passed up and cast aside several times before finally entering the lineup, and he immediately proved the coaching staff wrong for keeping him sidelined for so long. If Incognito knows one thing, it is interior offensive line play, and he seems to have co-signed Rogers.
Incognito, much like Raider Nation, seems frustrated with the team's personnel choices throughout the year. He blasted Chip Kelly and laid into Brennan Carroll as well. He played for the team in both Oakland and Las Vegas, but that doesn't mean he'll mince words.
The fan base has been fed up with the team's ill-advised decision-making all season long, and in a sense, they know that they are right to feel that way. But it is vindicating to hear a former Pro Bowler echo your sentiments, and that is exactly what Incognito has done and continues to do.