Graney: Don’t blame QB for Raiders 1st loss. Blame this instead

It was — and still might be — the Raiders’ biggest question on offense.

What sort of quarterback play will they receive?

Gardner Minshew started his first game with the team in a 22-10 defeat to the Chargers on Sept. 8.

The truth: He certainly wasn’t the reason the Raiders lost. He played well enough. But he still must be better, beginning with Sunday’s game in Baltimore.

Minshew completed 25 of his 33 passes for 257 yards on a day the Raiders couldn’t run the ball at all. He threw for one touchdown and an interception. He also coughed up one of the team’s two fumbles. So not great by any means.

But you can’t judge him in too harsh a manner when the Raiders managed just 71 rushing yards on 22 carries. You can’t put much of the blame on him when the offensive line had a terrible day.

The Raiders couldn’t block you.

Look for Adams

“Interior offensive line, short-yardage football, missed opportunities, penalties, sacks, turnovers,” coach Antonio Pierce said. “Just wasn’t good enough. You always want to give the other team credit, but I think when our offense looks at it, we had self-inflicted wounds. The Raiders can’t beat the Raiders.

“I thought Gardner, for the most part, handled operations and tempo and what we wanted to accomplish. Again, you have to establish the run game. You can’t just sit there and drop back and let the other guys tee off on our quarterback.”

It wasn’t the most imaginative play calling from offensive coordinator Luke Getsy. Minshew also needs to be more focused on keeping his eyes downfield and, specifically, toward star wide receiver Davante Adams.

Adams finished with five catches for 59 yards, but was open on several plays where the ball wasn’t thrown in his direction. Might have had something to do with the heat Minshew felt from his line not playing up to par.

Also, if you run the ball well, you open things up for play-action passes and keepers and bootlegs. All things of that nature. All things that could help an offense score more than 10 points.

“Yeah, I think more than anything it’s just consistency,” Minshew said. “There was good on tape. There were explosive plays on tape. We didn’t take care of the ball and that’s going to always start you off in a hole, so we got to do a better job of that.

“And just got to do a better job of staying on track, getting us in good second downs, good third downs and keeping us on the field.”

Minshew and Adams both talked about why there weren’t more plays downfield. What coverages they saw. What situations they were in.

Help from others

It goes back to what Pierce talked about in depth. If your ground game is weak, it’s easy for defenses to limit deep shots.

The Raiders were far too unproductive when the ball was handed off against the Chargers. That part must change Sunday at Baltimore. Moving the sticks will be critical, to keep Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson off the field if nothing else.

“We need to get (running backs) Zamir (White) and Alexander (Mattison) going,” Pierce said. “It starts with the offensive line, the juice and flow with the big boys. When they’re ripping and rolling and coming off the rock and finishing downfield, we’re a good football team.

“No excuses, but we just named Minshew the starter three weeks ago. There’s still a lot of growth for us. We’re not a finished product.”

Thank goodness for that.

Things weren’t good against the Chargers but the blame shouldn’t be leveled at the quarterback. Gardner Minshew was fine with room for improvement.

He just needs help from others. A lot of it.

Ed Graney, a Sigma Delta Chi Award winner for sports column writing, can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 7 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on X.