Josh McDaniels could repeat history with massive QB trade

Could new Las Vegas Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels repeat history in 2022 and trade a star QB as his first big move with the team?

Well, how about that? Josh McDaniels is a head coach in the NFL again after a 12-year “hiatus”. The Las Vegas Raiders introduced their new head coach, a man who was once thought by the Denver Broncos to be really what Sean McVay has become for the Los Angeles Rams.

Instead, McDaniels really cemented his legacy as one of the top assistant coaches in Patriots history and he accomplished so much in tandem with Bill Belichick and Tom Brady.

But, all good things must come to an end at some point.

Could Josh McDaniels really repeat history with the Las Vegas Raiders?

Back when he was the head coach of the Denver Broncos, Josh McDaniels was also the guy in charge of building the roster. As we have seen through the years, many disciples of Bill Belichick attempt to do exactly what Belichick does immediately upon arrival in a new city, and that style can be overly abrasive and certainly doesn’t work as well without Tom Brady under center.

When McDaniels became the head coach of the Denver Broncos, he inherited a talented young roster with offensive firepower, starting with young quarterback Jay Cutler.

The hope for everyone in Broncos Country was that McDaniels would bring his offensive expertise to the Mile High City and build a dynasty with Jay Cutler as the team’s franchise quarterback. Instead, he came in and blew everything up, trading Cutler to the Chicago Bears and drafting Tim Tebow a year later.

At that time, a lot of people thought that McDaniels was attempting to bring the Patriot way to Denver by acquiring Matt Cassel, but he failed to do that.

Cassel did come to the AFC West in 2009, but it was in a trade with the Kansas City Chiefs, not the Denver Broncos.

Does anyone think there is any coincidence that McDaniels and fellow former Patriot, Dave Ziegler (the Raiders’ new GM), are leaving the Patriots the same year that Jimmy Garoppolo is going to be changing teams?

Derek Carr has been the starting quarterback of the Raiders since he was drafted in 2014. It’s possible now with McDaniels and Ziegler in town that the 2021 season was Carr’s last as a Raider.

Ziegler will be familiar with making a deal with 49ers GM John Lynch as he was obviously part of the Patriots front office when they traded Jimmy Garoppolo to the 49ers in the first place.

There have already been plenty of rumors about Carr being a trade candidate in the 2022 offseason, and it just feels like history could repeat itself with Garoppolo going to the Raiders and Carr going off to the highest bidder so Ziegler and McDaniels can reshape the rosters with likely a couple of first-round picks.

And yes, I think Carr would command at least a first-round pick or equivalent value.

The Raiders could flip Carr for valuable draft capital, and they would likely be able to get Garoppolo at a good value given the fact that the writing has been on the wall for that move for about a year.

I’m not going to sit here and guarantee a Derek Carr trade out of Las Vegas and a Jimmy Garoppolo trade to the Raiders, but doesn’t it make sense given McDaniels’ history?

Garoppolo obviously wouldn’t lose sleep at night having to pick up McDaniels’ offense, he does a good job of distributing the ball to all of the playmakers within the offense, and frankly, he’s helped get the 49ers within a drive of two Super Bowl appearances in the last three seasons.

Say what you want about Garoppolo benefitting from Kyle Shanahan (he has), that’s what a lot of people have said about McDaniels’ offense and Tom Brady through the years, though, right?

With McDaniels coming in, I could see perhaps a more amicable decision to part ways in the 2022 offseason between the Raiders and Carr than we saw with McDaniels and Jay Cutler once upon a time.

I could also see the 49ers working to get Garoppolo to a place where he would actually want to be rather than just dumping him off to the highest bidder. After all, Garoppolo did his part as a teammate after the 49ers traded the farm for Trey Lance.

The more you think about this possibility, the more it really makes sense. We could see some massive QB movement with the Las Vegas Raiders in the 2022 offseason now that Josh McDaniels is the man in charge.