NFL QB Battles: Oakland Raiders right with Schaub
By Dan Salem
Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Have the Oakland Raiders finally found solid ground at quarterback? Matt Schaub is in the house and a revival is in order. Dan Salem and Todd Salem debate in part one of this week’s TD Sports Debate. Two brothers from New York yell, scream and debate the NFL and sports.
[Minnesota Vikings QB Battle] — [Cleveland Browns QB Battle]
DAN:
The Oakland Raiders are a team who always seem to have a quarterback controversy. Whether they are trying to replace a lackluster rookie, a retiring veteran, or one year journeyman fill in, the Raiders love a good QB battle. They enter 2014 with four passers on roster, three of which bring resumes (I didn’t say they were good resumes).
Their QB battle, on paper, consists of:
Matt Schaub: 64% career completion percentage with a career passer rating of 89.8
– He hasn’t excelled in the league in over a season, but Schaub has the pedigree to be successful.
Matt McGloin: 56% completion percentage in one year as starter (2013) with a 49.5 QBR
– His QBR was better than Schaub’s last year, but that’s not saying much. He feels like the right man to hold the backup position, but hopefully he isn’t required to start.
Derek Carr: The rookie
– Every great QB battle has a rookie involved and Oakland LOVES rookie quarterbacks.
Trent Edwards: 61% career completion percentage with a career passer rating of 75.5
– He hasn’t seen action as a starter in several years, but that’s never stopped the Raiders before.
If this were ANY other team, I’d say Schaub has the job. But these are the Oakland Raiders and they never do what is expected, logical, or makes good football sense. Their quarterbacks over the last decade are a laundry list of talent that very few will ever remember. What are we to make of things?
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TODD:
A four-player race sounds fantastic, but let’s get one thing straight here. Trent Edwards and Matt McGloin are not competing for the position of starting quarterback on this club. No team carries four quarterbacks. There isn’t enough roster space. Since Carr is a rookie, he’s safe, and it won’t even really matter how good or bad he looks. Edwards and McGloin are competing for a spot on this team. The loser of that competition will be cut. Hell, they BOTH might get cut if Carr comes out firing in preseason.
But I don’t truly believe that even Derek Carr is in much of a battle for the starting QB spot for Oakland. Despite the valid points you made about the Raiders being unexpected, illogical, etc, they traded for Matt Schaub this offseason for one reason: for him to start the 2014 season behind center.
Everything has played into that being the case. They traded away Terrelle Pryor for a seventh-round pick, even though he showed flashes of brilliance at points last season. He just wasn’t consistently good enough to play QB. They smartly showed patience and grabbed Carr in the second round, rather than trading up into the first to get him. And they traded a pick back to Houston for Schaub to be their guy.
Now the investment in Schaub wasn’t large, but they bought as low as possible on him, something all stat-heads and economists should be proud of. And as you said, he’s been a very successful quarterback in this league for a number of years before last season.
Schaub is the smart bet to be the starter. If he fizzles out again, Oakland has a number of other options to turn to. I have to be honest; it seems the Raiders actually look pretty smart here as far as their QB position is concerned.