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After a miserable time with Josh McDaniels leading the way, the Las Vegas Raiders are moving forward with Antonio Pierce as the franchise’s head coach.
Pierce stepped in as the Raiders’ interim head coach in 2023 after McDaniels was fired midway through the season.
Las Vegas clearly felt Pierce did a good enough job to get the interim tag removed this year, and now the team will see what sort of success he will be able to lead them to as their head coach for an entire season.
A big priority for the Raiders and their new head coach this year is figuring out who is going to be their starting quarterback for the 2024 season.
Some believe Las Vegas is going to select a young signal-caller in this year’s NFL Draft, but even if they do, Pierce recently revealed that second-year Raiders quarterback Aidan O’Connell has “earned [the] right” to compete for a starting job this offseason (via Around The NFL on Twitter).
Antonio Pierce: Aidan O’Connell “earned” right to compete for starting role even as Raiders consider drafting QB (via @wyche89)https://t.co/blC8EfjwTw pic.twitter.com/ZY6uKdIrBT
— Around The NFL (@AroundTheNFL) March 24, 2024
During the 2023 season, O’Connell was a rookie and he started a total of 10 games under center for the Raiders, leading them to a 5-5 record in these matchups.
In these 10 contests, he completed 62.1 percent of his passes for 2,218 yards, 12 touchdowns, and seven interceptions, which amounted to an 83.9 passer rating.
So O’Connell obviously didn’t put up mind-boggling stats during his rookie season with Las Vegas, but Pierce definitely sees that the young quarterback still has plenty of potential.
With the No. 13 pick in this year’s NFL Draft, it will be very interesting to see if the Raiders decide to use their first-round selection on one of the top quarterback prospects from the 2024 draft pool.
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