The Las Vegas Raiders made some major changes ahead of their Week 9 matchup against the New York Giants. General manager Dave Ziegler, head coach Josh McDaniels and offensive coordinator Mick Lombardi were all fired as ownership was looking to shake things up once again.
Antonio Pierce was named the interim head coach and one of the first decisions he made was to name rookie quarterback Aidan O’Connell the starter over veteran Jimmy Garoppolo. O’Connell made one start previously, in Week 4 against the Los Angeles Chargers.
But, when Garoppolo was forced to miss another game because of injury, it was veteran Brian Hoyer who got the starting nod. The results were as disastrous as you would expect, as Hoyer and the Raiders went on the road and lost to the Chicago Bears and undrafted free agent Tyson Bagnet from Division II Shepard University.
Under new management, the Raiders looked excellent against the Giants. They won 30-6 in Week 9 and the team clicked in every facet of the game. O’Connell was solid in the starting role, as players have loved what he has brought to the table.
One of the players who praised him after the victory was star defensive end Maxx Crosby.“He is a stud,” Crosby said of O’Connell on the November 6 episode of the “Pat McAfee Show.” “He doesn’t carry himself like a rookie. That’s the first thing I can point to. When he first got here, he carried himself like he was a vet. He comes in, he’s super calm. Doesn’t let anything get to him. He gets ripped on in meetings, poker face. Doesn’t have any reaction. Seeing a young guy like that is super rare, especially playing quarterback.”
It was a unique situation that O’Connell found himself in. During his college career at Purdue, he played under one head coach for his entire tenure with the team.
With the Raiders, it took eight weeks of the regular season for him to be playing under his second head coach. But, he made the most of the situation and showed why so many of his teammates were excited to see him get a change.
“It’s a situation I’ve never been a part of,” O’Connell said in his November 5 postgame press conference. “I was lucky to have one head coach my entire time in college, and I was in college for a long time so I got pretty lucky with that. To have a coaching shift this early on was definitely unexpected but I think our guys around me just did a great job of instilling confidence in me and allowing my job to be a lot easier.”
The Raiders are a team to keep an eye on moving forward this season. They looked like a totally different group under the leadership of Pierce, who has a group motivated to show that McDaniels was the reason for their shortcomings, not the players on the roster.
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