How The Raiders Will SHOCK THE NFL And *Make The Playoffs* In 2024!

You said starters will play this week. Devontae last night said he'd choose not to if it was up to him. Would there be a conversation or do you think that his point in his career would be up to him? No, if you're healthy, you'll play. God damn. Antonio Pierce proving yet again why he's going to be one of the next great Las Vegas Raiders head coaches. I'm going to get into him. I'm going to get into why I think the Raiders are almost a surefire bet to have a winning season. And I also think they can actually get into the playoffs fairly easily if pieces fall a certain way, which have been showing to come to fruition during training camp in the preseason. I'm going to get into all that, why I believe we're going to make the playoffs, because next week, probably around this time, is going to be my final win-loss prediction video, right before the new league year starts. That will be on Patreon probably Sunday night, and then it'll be on YouTube probably the following Thursday or Friday. Last thing I need you to do before I get into this video, hit that subscribe button. We just passed 8,000. We're trying to get to 10,000 before the new league year. We got about a month to do it. Let's make that final push. If you're a lurker, 70% of you are, hit that sub button. Let's get into it. This will be the last time I mention anything resembling a quarterback competition until the starter is named. I'm tired of talking about it. I'm sure everyone's tired of hearing about it. There's not much more to say. There was a practice with fans in attendance, and the reports are Gardner did okay. Aiden did better, and Aiden took the majority of the first-team reps after one preseason game with a little bit of film showing that Aiden O'Connell is throwing people open, throwing the ball before receivers are breaking their routes. Gardner Minshew doesn't stay in the pocket. I broke all this down on Patreon. I broke all this down on YouTube. You can see all of it. Aiden O'Connell is going to be the starter, and again, if you needed any more confirmation, Devontae Adams in his press conference, first press conference back from having a newborn baby, spoke highly of Aiden, didn't say anything bad about Gardner, didn't say anything at all about Gardner. All he did was say Gardner did his thing, Aiden did his thing, and then said Aiden fired him up with all the passes he was making, literally throwing people open, throwing the ball before receivers were making their route breaks. That's the last thing I'm going to say about the quarterback competition. Aiden O'Connell, barring some miracle injury or performance of a lifetime from Gardner Minshew with the ones against Dallas in this preseason game, will be the starter. You heard it here first. You heard it here about five, six months ago. The reason why I'm so convinced that we're going to walk to a winning season, not only is the quarterback room much better than it was last year, it's not ideal, obviously, we've been saying this, not ideal, much better than it was last year. The defense is obviously going to carry us to a lot of wins. We're going to need them to flip a possession or two against good teams like the Bengals and the Chiefs this year to have a chance to really make some noise in the AFC. Luke Getze has shown with the way he's using Brock Bowers scarcely, he doesn't want to show too much, he's keeping things pretty vanilla offensively, that he is ready to use these weapons to their absolute maximum potential. But the reason above all else that I truly think we're going to surprise a lot of people who aren't paying attention to us is because of Antonio Pierce. I've been pounding the drum since Christmas Day. I made a video that said if he wins this game, he will be the next head coach. No one ever thought we'd actually win the game, which means no one ever thought he'd actually be the next head coach. However, he won the game convincingly. Doesn't matter what the final score was, it wasn't very close. And ever since then, Antonio Pierce has not left a single stone unturned. He got a GM in here, him and Mark Davis, that was able to lead him where he needed to be led in terms of Tom Telesco being in the league, being around a highly successful organization like the Indianapolis Colts, with Pollian being the GM, with Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck under center. Tom Telesco has been able to fill in the gaps that Antonio Pierce was lacking in terms of showing consistency when you are the head coach or when you are the general manager. Antonio Pierce brought in guys like Marvin Lewis, Joe Philbin, Tom Coughlin, North Turner now in training camp to help him further garner some expertise. And then when training camp was ready to go, he set the tone immediately. We're going to be flying around the football. We're not going to practice in 110 degree heat in Henderson, Nevada. We're going to move to Costa Mesa, California. We're going to stay there for three weeks like a summer camp, like a boot camp. We're going to grow as a community, as a brotherhood, as a team. We're going to be tight-knit and we're going to have to be because like I said, the offense is not going to be this Kansas City Chiefs-Miami Dolphins explosive 35 points per game offense. So we're going to need to mesh and know each other, ins and outs, unlike any other team. And he right now is playing the hand he was dealt. They tried to trade up for a quarterback to get a difference maker. They weren't able to, so they settled for the best available player, which just might be the best player to come out in 2024. He said, OK, if Aiden's going to be the only quarterback that has a chance of starting, let's bring in the best veteran on the market besides Kirk Cousins because Kirk Cousins is going to cost you too much to compete with the rookie fourth rounder to see who gives us the best chance to win. And not only is Aiden proven that he's going to be the guy that gives us the best chance to win, but Gardner has also pushed him to the brink, which means that we are in capable hands with Gardner or Aiden. These are conscious decisions that Antonio Pierce, along with Tom Pelesco, has made. And he's also decided to surround Aiden O'Connell with not only a plethora of weapons to throw to, but an ever-developing and deep offensive line. Colton Miller's out. Thayer Mumford's in. Thayer Mumford's out. DJ Glaze is coming in and showing some stuff. JPJ's not going to be ready. It's OK. We've got backup linemen ready to go. And not every lineman is going to be, you know, Trent Williams, Colton Miller. But we have people that we can plug in there. Again, conscious decision to make sure that our quarterback, which is not the ideal quarterback, has the best chance to succeed. Antonio Pierce won a Super Bowl with Eli Manning. Borderline Hall of Famer, but if you look at his record overall, it's a losing record. However, because Eli had a great defense and he had some weapons to throw to, he was able to develop to the best of his ability. He was a smart quarterback. He was upright in the pocket. And he was able to win a Super Bowl with Antonio Pierce leading that defense, amongst other guys who obviously were helping him along the way. And he is shaping our team, not only in identity, but of skill set and of scheme to rival that 2008 New York Giants team. We have absolute dogs on the defensive line. Jacobian Bennett has emerged as the CB2 to Jack Jones as CB1. CB1 Jack Jones is a guy that was cut by the Patriots. Antonio Pierce said, I know how to use him better than Bill Belichick and is getting him to become what looks like a premier corner in the National Football League. Trayvon Merrick and Marcus Epps now are playing better than ever before under Josh McDaniels, no, under Antonio Pierce. Antonio Pierce has been able to get the best possible play out of guys like Robert Spillane, Devine Diablo, and Malcolm Koontz. These are all things that happened after Antonio Pierce assumed the position of not only interim head coach, but of head coach. This is why I believe when we play teams whose quarterback is just slightly better than ours, our defense and our scheme is going to be prepared and is going to be that much better and more in line with what the head coach is thinking that we are going to win games that we shouldn't be able to win. And this is why I think we're going to surprise a lot of people. Because if you look at our schedule right now, you could easily say we're going to beat the Broncos twice. You could easily say we're going to beat the Chargers twice. And we might split the Chiefs. So right there, that's one, two, three, four, five wins. We only need four more wins to get to nine, which is a winning record. I don't know if nine gets you in the playoffs. We might have to win one game that we shouldn't have won, like a Bengals game, like a Dolphins game, like a Chiefs game in Kansas City to really push us to the next level to make the playoffs. A lot of air quotes in this video. I just realized I've been doing that a lot, and I apologize. But it comes down to this. Antonio Pierce, Juan Ecliffe Kingsbury, Magic Johnson stolen. He pivoted to Lucchetti. Lucchetti has shown me nothing but absolute abilities to adapt to what his current quarterback situation is and his current weaponry situation is. Patrick Graham, who could have maybe went somewhere and gotten a head coaching job, could have maybe went to a different team to be a defensive coordinator and gotten a raise, was able to stay because Antonio Pierce convinced him to stay. With him and Tom Telesco, our draft is looking more and more like one of the better Raider drafts we've had in a long time because they hit on Bowers. They hit on Glaze. They hit on Laubie, right? These are three guys in important positions. The other guys we've got to wait and see. JPJ, assuming he hits, assuming he can stay healthy, that's four guys that are blue chippers right there. I haven't even talked about the rest of the draft class. We need to wait and see how we look these first few weeks, and these first few weeks are very telling because if we don't come out and win that first Charger game, right? You never know. Is Herbert going to play? It's going to be a weird game. Harbaugh, weird game. We're going to be underdogs in that Baltimore game, and we probably lose that game. We could start out the season 0-2 if we lose the first game. Week 1s are always strange, always, always, always strange. Weird things happen week 1. So if we fall week 1 and fall week 2, we're going to have to see how tight-knit and how prepared Antonio Pierce was to face adversity like this because there's a chance we could start out 0-2. There's absolutely a chance. I don't think that's going to happen. I think we're going to go 1-1, but if that does happen, the sky is not falling. We have to see how this is all going to shake out. But for right now, these are my reasons as to why I believe we could actually make the playoffs in 2024. Comment below your thoughts. What is your final record prediction? Can we make the playoffs with this roster? What are your comments, concerns? Hit that Like button. It does help a lot. Drop those comments, like I said. 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