When the Las Vegas Raiders hired Pete Carroll to be their head coach and traded for veteran Geno Smith, it was with the idea of being a competitive team. Five weeks into the 2025 NFL season, they are far from that.
The Silver and Black are coming off a 40-6 loss to the Indianapolis Colts in Week 5 and are riding a four-game losing streak. Moreover, Smith, who was supposed to bring a veteran presence, is turning the ball over and playing like the New York Jets version.
At 1-4, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons teed off on key coaches and ownership for the squad that they assembled over the offseason for this campaign.
So the Raiders are 1-4,” Simmons said. “I wrote down: ‘Turns out mid-70s, Pete Carroll, a washed-up Chip Kelly, a multitasking Tom Brady, and apparently washed-up Geno Smith and the son of Al Davis were not the dream team in retrospect.’”
Raiders QB Geno Smith Draws Brutal Take
Simmons did focus on Smith, considering the signal-caller is the one out on the field making mistakes and playing subpar after Las Vegas not only traded for him but signed him to a contract extension.
“It just seems like it’s over,” Simmons added. “[Smith] has nine interceptions already in five games, and there’s a storied list of people who have done this, and it’s all [among] some of the worst quarterbacks he can remember from the last 30 years. The Raiders, of course, have had a couple of them. I can’t believe how bad he’s been.
“They gave him $75 million for two years. They gave up a third-round pick for him, and he’s worse than the guys they had last year. It was [Aidan] O’Connell, [Gardner] Minshew, and [Desmond] Ridder—nineteen TDs, sixteen interceptions. Geno’s six TDs, nine interceptions right now.”
Should the Raiders Bench Geno Smith?
Smith was signed to provide veteran leadership for a young Raiders offense. Yet, the errors typically associated with players in their first few NFL seasons are coming from the 34-year-old instead.
Still, Carroll clarified why they chose not to bring in Pickett once the game was effectively decided.
“Here’s the reason why I didn’t do that: We need to stay out there and keep practicing, ” Carroll said postgame when asked if there was a thought to bench Smith for Pickett. “We need to keep practicing, we need the reps, we need the turns, we need to run the system, we need to feel it, we need to see the guys get the opportunities to improve.
“I thought about it because there was a chance to do that. … That’s not what’s necessary. We need to get better and get right, so these are the games that we’re working on, and these are the games that we learn from and grow from so that we can change the course of the way games are going.”
Nonetheless, former Raiders wide receiver James Jones did call out Carroll for not giving Kenny Pickett a look once the game got out of hand.
“When you’re losing the way we have lost a couple of games this season, [you] put Kenny Pickett in there and see what he can do,“ Jones said on the October 5 edition of “Raiders Postgame Live.“ “Not only that, Geno Smith has been struggling.
“So now you’re losing a game and he’s struggling, and [you’re] putting him in a pass situation only for him to make another mistake. That’s not going to help his confidence. Put Kenny Pickett out there. We don’t know if Geno Smith is the future of this team. We don’t know that.”
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