Gardner Minshew’s disastrous stint with the Las Vegas Raiders is set to come to an end.
The Raiders plan to release Minshew at the start of the league new year on March 12, according to team sources. They’ll take a dead-money hit of $10.82 million while freeing up about $3 million in cap space per Spotrac.
Former general manager Tom Telesco signed Minshew to a two-year, $25 million deal last March, setting up a two-way competition at quarterback between him and incumbent starter Aidan O’Connell. Minshew was named the starting quarterback in training camp, partly because former offensive coordinator Luke Getsy preferred Minshew’s experience and mobility advantage over O’Connell.
It proved to be a brutal decision. Minshew was benched three times in the first nine games of the season, and Getsy was fired following a blowout loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 9.
Overall, Minshew made nine starts and played in just 10 games for the Raiders before suffering a season-ending broken collarbone against the Denver Broncos in Week 12. He completed 66.3 percent of his passes (14th) and averaged 6.6 yards per attempt (31st), 0.9 passing touchdowns per game (34th among passers with at least 100 attempts) and 1.4 turnovers per game (second-most in the NFL). He ranked 37th in Expected Points Added per dropback and had a sack rate of 8.7 percent (34th).
Minshew easily had the worst season of his career, and it’s no surprise that the Raiders’ new regime of GM John Spytek and coach Pete Carroll decided to move on. The only quarterbacks remaining on the roster are O’Connell and Carter Bradley, so they’ll need to add to the quarterback room at some point this offseason.
The Raiders tried — and failed — to trade for Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford before he agreed to a restructured contract to stay put last week. Multiple coaches within the organization would rather roll with a veteran quarterback over taking a highly-drafted rookie quarterback, according to league sources. Part of the reason they were so aggressive in pursuing Stafford — they offered him a two-year deal worth around $90-100 million — was because they aren’t nearly as high on Sam Darnold and the other quarterbacks who will become unrestricted free agents Monday.
According to league sources, the Raiders left the NFL Scouting Combine last week with mixed feelings about the 2025 draft class. The Raiders met with Miami’s Cam Ward, Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders and several other quarterbacks, including Alabama’s Jalen Milroe, Texas’ Quinn Ewers and Mississippi’s Jaxson Dart. The team put a lot of stock into those meetings. According to league sources, the Raiders came away particularly impressed with Milroe and Ewers when going over X’s and O’s and film, though their first pick at No. 6 overall would be too rich of a slot to take either one. At this point, the most likely outcome feels like the Raiders signing another stop-gap quarterback in free agency and then seeing how the draft plays out.
“The quarterback position is going to be highly contested, and if you look back at when we started at Seattle, and how we built the competition to find the proper guy that would take over in that job, that was a very intricate, elaborate process,” Carroll said last week. “However this goes, our guys are all going to take a shot at it, and we’ve got guys on the roster right now that are fighting their tails off to see if they can own that position. We’re going to give them a chance.”
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(Photo: Candice Ward / Getty Images)
