When the Las Vegas Raiders traded for the former Seattle Seahawks quarterback, Geno Smith, it lifted a weight off the front office's shoulders. This franchise hasn't had a quarterback as good as Smith in a very long time. The trade was needed.
And, some may argue that point with Derek Carr, but the truth is, while Carr has done more in his career, because of Smith's stint as a backup, Smith's peak is much better than Carr's when you look at the talent of the two. But, with Smith's age, as he is currently 34, the Raiders need to have a backup plan. That's not to say they don't have any faith in Smith, but they want to be sure.
They want Smith to be the QB of the future. He wants to be the Raiders' QB of the future. But, we have kind of seen this before, really with both Jimmy Garoppolo and Gardner Minshew. Sure, the situations are a bit different, but they are also a bit the same.
So, yes, the Raiders will likely still be taking a quarterback in the draft.
"Sure. Yeah, yeah. We're always building," head coach Pete Carroll said at the NFL Owners Meetings. "So, taking Geno [Smith] is an immediate fix for us. It's going to last us. We're going to get a number of years from Geno at his very best. He's healthy and ready to go.
"He's as tuned in as he's ever been. But that doesn't mean that we don't see a guy - there's some guys coming out that have got tremendous potential, and we'll just take a look at each spot and the opportunity that's presented and the choices that we have. But we're not excluding taking any position at this time."
The Raiders have the chance to get their Jordan Love, if that makes sense. The Green Bay Packers had Aaron Rodgers under contract for a few years, and the Raiders spent a pretty high pick on drafting Jordan Love, the guy who has now taken over and is their face of the franchise while Rodgers is hopping from team to team. That could be a Shedeur Sanders situation.
Or, they could take a guy late in the draft like Kyle McCord, who has the talent, is still kind of raw, but also young. They can sit him behind Smith for a few years and see how he's developed.
There are so many different scenarios of how this could play out. But, it's clear the Raiders are going to try and draft a QB.
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