3 Players Raiders Must Consider Benching amid 3-5 Start
The Las Vegas Raiders enter Week 9 without a head coach and with a lot of frustration.
The Raiders offense looked awful in their two losses to the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions, which resulted in Josh McDaniels' firing.
Las Vegas needs to make some adjustments to its offense in order to be competitive for the rest of the 2023 NFL season, starting with its Week 9 clash with the New York Giants.
A postseason spot seems unlikely at the moment in 14th place, but the Raiders play five of their next six games inside Allegiant Stadium.
A few tweaks to the offense could allow the Raiders to get on a run and look completely different than they have in the last two games.
Hunter Renfrow
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Hunter Renfrow's production has significantly fallen off over the last two seasons.
The Clemson product only has 10 catches for 92 yards through eight weeks in 2023. He had 330 receiving yards and two touchdowns last season.
Renfrow peaked during the 2021 season, when he eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark and scored nine times.
Renfrow seems to have lost some explosiveness and it may be time for the Raiders to look to other wide receivers to help a mid-season turnaround.
Tre Tucker, a 2023 third-round pick, deserves more looks in the offense because Jimmy Garoppolo needs another explosive wide receiver to work with.
Davante Adams and Jakobi Meyers are clearly the top two targets, and if Tucker gets involved with his speed, the Raiders' offense could be hard to stop with its speed moving forward.
Austin Hooper
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The second half of the season should be about getting the young players inside the Raiders offense more playing time.
Austin Hooper enters Week 9 with one more reception than rookie tight end Michael Mayer. Mayer has 30 more receiving yards than Hooper.
The Raiders should give Mayer every chance to impress as they build toward the future, and that should come at the expense of some playing time for Hooper.
Hooper can still be used in blocking situations, and in two tight-end sets, but he can't be the primary pass-catching target from the tight end spot.
Hooper had more receiving yards than Mayer in Week 7 and the two tight ends each had 19 yards in Monday night's loss to the Lions.
The Raiders spent a second-round pick on Mayer and they need to show the coaching staff what he has so that a foundation can be in place for 2024.
Jimmy Garoppolo
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A quarterback change would be the most extreme decision interim head coach Antonio Pierce could make.
Garoppolo has not performed well in his last two starts, and one more bad performance against the Giants in Week 9, could end his time as the starter if Pierce wants to make extreme changes.
Garoppolo completed just 47.6 percent of his passes in Week 8 and he recorded a season low of 126 passing yards.
Two weeks ago, Garoppolo managed 162 yards and one touchdown while completing 63.6 percent of his passes.
Some of Garoppolo's struggles can be attributed to poor offensive line. He was sacked on six occasions by the Lions.
However, Garoppolo is not making the right throws, or he is underthrowing Adams, Meyers and others, which leads to an ineffective offense.
The Raiders do not have the best backup option in Aidan O'Connell, but if they commit to the future over chasing a playoff spot at 3-5, a quarterback swap could make sense.
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