Will Aidan O’Connell still be the Raiders’ starting quarterback when the team plays the Chargers on Thursday night?
Interim head coach Antonio Pierce still isn’t saying definitively one way or the other.
“We’re still going through that process,” Pierce said Wednesday, via Vinny Bonsignore of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “Got a couple more hours. See how it’s going.”
Pierce noted that going through the process doesn’t automatically mean the team is going back to Jimmy Garoppolo.
“I never said Aidan wasn’t the starter, let’s say that first and foremost,” Pierce said. “We’re still evaluating it. If there’s a chance to get better, a chance to improve, a chance to put us in position to win, we gotta get all the factors that go into it.”
The Raiders were shut out by the Vikings for a 3-0 loss on Sunday. Las Vegas’ offense has been stuck in the proverbial mud for most of the season, as the club has scored more than 20 points just twice. But after beating the Giants 30-6 in Pierce’s first game as interim coach, the club has scored 16, 13, 17, and 0 in its last four contests.
“Just making decisions based off media, a loss, a bad, ugly performance, that’s not how you do things in the National Football League,” Pierce said. “That’s not how you run a business. Maybe other people do, A.P. doesn’t, and the Raiders are not going to do that.
“We’re going to do whatever it takes to put ourselves in position to win. And after today, we’ll have a better answer.”
O’Connell, Garoppolo, and Brian Hoyer have all started at least a game for the Raiders this season. Garoppolo had completed 65.5 percent of his throws for 1,205 yards with seven touchdowns and nine interceptions in six games before he was benched when Josh McDaniels was fired.
O’Connell, a fourth-round rookie out of Purdue, has completed 63.8 percent of passes for 1,365 yards with four touchdowns and seven interceptions in seven appearances with six starts.
