Each year The Athletic polls a group of NFL coaches and executives to put each team’s starting quarterback into tiers.
These tiers are from 1-4 and among those tiers is a ranking from 1-30. As you might expect, Patrick Mahomes came in at the top. He was joined in tier one by Joe Burrow and Josh Allen.
From there you have to drop down a ways, well into the lowest tier (4) before you find Raiders starter Gardner Minshew.
Here is what a few anonymous coaches told The Athletic about their thoughts on Minshew.
“Nobody wants him to be a starter, probably even his own team, but he won games with Indy last year,” an offensive coach said. “When you play him, the kid is competitive. He will keep you in the game — and them. It’s going to be a fight.”
“Gardner Minshew is a real gutsy player,” a defensive coordinator said. “Everybody on the team is going to love him. He is going to extend plays with his legs. He’s smart. He will be able to function in the offense. But he’s just limited.”
What’s interesting is while Minshew got 31 votes for tier four, he also got 15 votes for tier 3. That’s significantly better than last year when he got just three votes for tier 3, 22 for tier 4, and 25 for tier 5. So, he did improve the opinions of a lot of coaches and execs in his 13 starts in Indianapolis last season.
Tier 4 is described as those quarterbacks who “could be an unproven player (not enough information for voters to classify) or a veteran who ideally would not start all 17 games.”
Minshew would fall in the latter of the two — the veteran who would ideally not start all 17 games. In fact, though he comes in at number 25, there are only two quarterbacks ranked lower who would also fit into that category — Sam Darnold (Vikings) and Jacoby Brissett (Patriots).
The difference there is the Vikings and Patriots both drafted quarterbacks in the top ten this year who they hoped would be taking over the starting job right away. The Raiders just have second year former fourth rounder Aidan O’Connell who just lost the starting job to Minshew.
So, ideal or not, the Raiders are pretty much stuck with what they’ve got at least until they get another shot at upgrading the position. Which appears to be next year.