In this episode of the Las Vegas Raiders Insider Podcast, we discuss rookie QB Aidan O'Connell, pressure on the Silver and Black, and much more.
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00:00 Hi everybody.
00:01 Welcome back to Sports Illustrated's Fan Nation Las Vegas Raiders Insider Podcast.
00:04 I'm Hondo Carpenter, editor and publisher of Raiders Today, as well as your host, joined
00:09 by my good buddy, my friend and my colleague from thespun.com, the great Matt Holadek.
00:14 Matt, how are you, bud?
00:15 Doing great, Hondo, and we are one week, one step closer to the regular season.
00:20 I can't believe it.
00:21 I think it was yesterday was three weeks until the first game.
00:26 Yeah, first, the first, first full Sunday.
00:31 Yep.
00:32 Yeah, Raiders game on the 10th.
00:34 I'm like, unbelievable.
00:35 Are you kidding me?
00:36 Time is flying.
00:37 All right, we got a lot to discuss, Matt, because there just is.
00:42 We're going to talk about overreactions, underreactions, and all of that today.
00:47 Aiden O'Connell goes out, first two games.
00:50 I mean, he looks like he's going to be a little bit of a pain in the ass.
00:55 First two games, I mean, he looks tremendous.
00:58 Now, I want to talk to you about this a little bit, because I, as you know, reported when
01:06 they drafted him, this is a guy that coming out of school as a junior, a lot of people
01:10 thought would have been a first rounder.
01:12 He chose to go back to Purdue.
01:15 All of the ancillary things that went along with that, all the issues that went along
01:20 with it still got Purdue, which is a major story to a Big Ten championship game.
01:27 He has had a tremendous QB rating.
01:29 He has looked good.
01:30 There is nothing Aiden O'Connell has done negative.
01:35 Okay.
01:36 Now, when he was brought in here, Brian Hoyer was brought in to back up Jimmy, but to be
01:44 a tutor like he was to Mac Jones for Aiden O'Connell.
01:50 Brian's done a really good job.
01:51 We're going to give him all the credit in the world for what he's done to help Aiden.
01:55 But at the same time, Aiden's taken the coaching and has come along exponentially.
02:03 And so I'm hearing a lot of people, you know, you need to, we need to just go ahead and
02:07 start Aiden O'Connell.
02:09 No, you don't pay Jimmy the kind of money you paid him.
02:12 I can tell you right now, Aiden does not have this offense mastered.
02:16 He's a rookie.
02:17 It's very difficult to do.
02:20 He is farther along than anybody thought he would be.
02:24 So he deserves all the credit in the world for that.
02:27 But I think you ride the horse of Jimmy, continue to let Aiden win it, but you've got to tap
02:32 the brakes a little bit because you've got a very efficient and a very qualified QB one.
02:41 I think you got to let, you have Aiden have some time here.
02:44 You know, we wrote a story about comparing his first, you know, start and playing to
02:50 Kenny Stabler.
02:51 We weren't saying he was Kenny Stabler, but the point is, is he played so well, we wanted
02:55 to put it in perspective.
02:56 Got to go back and find a Raiders quarterback in the first performance who performed that
03:01 way.
03:02 And but I just think there needs to be a, let the kid develop a little bit.
03:07 Your thoughts on the whole situation.
03:08 No one's taken anything away from him.
03:10 He's looked phenomenal.
03:12 Your thoughts?
03:13 Sure.
03:14 You never want to keep sort of unrealistic expectations and burdens on a rookie quarterback
03:21 early on.
03:22 I think that it's tough enough to do for guys that are taken with the first or second pick
03:28 in the draft who are expected to be these franchise saving or franchise altering QBs.
03:34 It's hard enough on them.
03:35 And then you look at a kid like Aiden O'Connell, who has a lot of talent, a lot of things that
03:40 you look for in a quarterback, but was drafted in the middle rounds.
03:44 It was not taken to be a guy counted on from day one.
03:48 The Raiders, like you said, they brought in Jimmy Garoppolo for a reason.
03:52 It doesn't make any sense to me to, for them to just shun Jimmy Garoppolo now.
03:59 You don't do that.
04:00 You roll with him to start the year.
04:02 Listen, if Jimmy Garoppolo plays well and your performance in the preseason carries
04:07 over to the regular season and you're looking like you're hanging around in the UFC playoff
04:11 race and you're having a solid year, you roll with it.
04:16 If you get to end of November and you're 5-7 or something like that, and you have five
04:25 games left and you really are at a point where you're looking like the playoffs aren't in
04:31 the cards, then I think it's safe to say you turn to an Aiden O'Connell for the last month
04:37 or so of the season to see what he has, to see if you think he can be the next guy for
04:43 you when you move on from Garoppolo eventually.
04:46 But for now, you have to bring him along slowly.
04:49 You have to kind of take everything he's done in perspective.
04:54 You bottle it.
04:55 You put it in your back pocket.
04:56 You enjoy it as a Raider fan and you're allowed to get excited.
05:00 No one's saying you shouldn't.
05:02 But you don't want to keep too much on his plate right away.
05:06 Yeah, I think the Raider Nation should be excited.
05:09 I think they are excited.
05:11 You've got a really quality young quarterback that's showing a lot of flashes.
05:16 You've got a very good starting quarterback.
05:18 Nobody is saying that Jimmy Garoppolo is going to be the next guy for you.
05:26 I'm not saying anything to Raiders fans and I'm not telling them what to think.
05:32 I'm just giving my perspective is that I think there shouldn't be any angst.
05:37 "Dump Jimmy.
05:38 Go with this."
05:39 No, no.
05:40 I think there should be total excitement.
05:41 Look at what we got.
05:42 We got a great guy in Brian Hoyer to offer tutelage, but also knows the system backwards
05:49 and forwards.
05:50 We've got Jimmy, who's a proven winner when healthy.
05:53 And man, we've got this young kid that shows the it.
05:56 I think there's a lot of reasons to be happy.
05:58 I don't think there's any to be unhappy with.
06:02 Agree?
06:03 I would agree with that.
06:04 You're definitely feeling better about your quarterback situation than you might have
06:09 even thought you'd be at this point of preseason, less than three weeks to the opening game.
06:14 I agree.
06:15 All right.
06:16 I want to get to a couple of things with you real quick.
06:19 As you know, I predicted the Raiders, if Jimmy Garoppolo is healthy, to win nine games, to
06:25 go nine and eight.
06:27 And you may remember, I predicted them to start the season at 0-2.
06:32 I predicted a loss at Denver and a loss at Buffalo.
06:36 And my question for you, Matt, that I want to get to is, you know, nine wins to me is
06:45 just the ceiling.
06:46 There are still some defensive questions, not that they didn't address those issues,
06:51 but there still are some defensive questions to me because you got young guys who have
06:56 to learn.
06:58 And so to me, you always have to budget in the learning curve.
07:01 Now, if they come along quicker, more can happen.
07:05 But my job is to give up when I give a prediction is what's my analysis of what I expect to
07:09 happen.
07:10 My first two years, I nailed it.
07:12 Last year, I was terrible, worse than the worst.
07:17 But I own it.
07:20 It's interesting to me, though, this Raider team, if they played the Broncos 10 times
07:26 in Denver right now, my analysis, now obviously it may look different when I see the Broncos.
07:32 I think the Broncos win six, the Raiders win four.
07:36 But I've been watching these Broncos and their ones.
07:40 I've not been impressed.
07:42 How big of a deal would it be for the Raiders if they could go up to Denver?
07:46 And in my opinion, it would be stealing and go up and steal a game to start that season.
07:53 I'm telling you, Matt, there's going to be some adjustments to the Sean Payton system,
07:57 but I'm looking ahead a little bit.
08:00 Help me here.
08:01 Well, I think that, you know, that's obviously would be a division win in a tough division.
08:08 A win over a rival.
08:10 I think going into that game, you know, listen, fans tend to, and I'm including myself as
08:20 a fan, may overreact to one week, a win or a loss.
08:27 But I do think that the Broncos have a lot more pressure on them going into the season,
08:33 of course, but even just going into week one, because they were really bad last year.
08:39 And Russell Wilson was really bad last year.
08:41 Now Sean Payton is a much, is a clear upgrade over Daniel Hackett.
08:45 I don't think anyone's going to argue against that.
08:48 But Russell Wilson, so far in the preseason, hasn't looked that great.
08:54 And maybe he adjusts some more when the lights come on in September.
08:58 You know, he's better, he's more capable in the system, more comfortable, and he starts
09:02 to look like the Russell Wilson of old.
09:04 But if he's just old Russell Wilson, and he's kind of trending more on the downside of his
09:12 career, the Broncos could be in some trouble again this year.
09:15 And that's a game with the Raiders to steal.
09:17 Well now you give yourself some confidence.
09:19 Now even with a win there, I don't think they go to Buffalo and win in week two.
09:24 But you feel pretty good coming back home, even at one and one, for a game that's winnable
09:31 against the Steelers, before you go on the road again and play the Chargers in another
09:36 division game.
09:37 You know, there are some games early in the season against teams that I think could be
09:43 good and could be factors in the playoff race.
09:48 Pittsburgh, and these are teams that missed the playoffs last year.
09:51 Pittsburgh, Green Bay, I'm looking at the schedule right now, New England at home, the
09:56 Green Bay game is also at home.
09:58 Raiders got to go to the Bears.
10:00 Those are four games right there against teams that are kind of on the playoff cusp, whether
10:07 in the AFC or NFC, where if the Raiders can beat them or at least get a couple of wins
10:11 against them, you're feeling pretty good, I think, heading to the back half of your
10:15 schedule that you're going to be a factor in the postseason race in the AFC.
10:19 Maybe not make it, but you're not, you know, it's the three and four win predictions that
10:24 I've seen elsewhere, the more dire scenarios aren't going to come to fruition.
10:30 You know, I'm going to say this to you, Matt, because if they get to 10 wins, now I still
10:36 think it's going to be nine, but they get to 10 now, they're going to be in the playoffs.
10:40 I believe a 10 win Raider team makes the playoffs to me.
10:44 And there are some games that they can steal.
10:46 Now to get to nine games, to get to nine wins, I'm already planning on them stealing something.
10:53 Now you touched on something and we did not discuss what we were going to talk about that
10:57 I wanted to address with you that I thought was brutally important.
11:02 And that is pressure.
11:04 I think this Raider team is in a place that the national pundits are not discussing.
11:10 There's no pressure outside of the building on them.
11:13 Now fans, but I'm not talking about that.
11:17 The expectation, even among a lot of the fans, oh, this sucks, let's just let them lose so
11:23 we can burn it down and get rid of Josh McDaniels.
11:26 And that's not all, I'm not implying it's all, but there is a very vocal number who
11:30 feel that way.
11:32 I think that puts the Raiders in a really good spot because here's my point.
11:38 I think there's a ton of pressure in Denver.
11:41 New owners, you just paid Sean Payton all that money.
11:44 Sean Payton's run his mouth a lot.
11:46 You got Russell Wilson.
11:49 I think all of the pressure week one is on Denver.
11:53 I don't think there's any pressure on the Raiders.
11:56 Again, outside, there's a ton of pressure on the inside.
11:59 We're going to address that next.
12:01 But I think that puts the Raiders in a spot where there's a term here in Vegas, we're
12:06 playing with house money.
12:09 They're playing with house money right now, Matt.
12:12 And for those of you at home that don't know what it means, let's say you go to a blackjack
12:15 table with a hundred bucks and you win 200 on the first hand.
12:19 So now you have your hundred bucks originally, but you have $200 worth of house money.
12:24 So maybe you gamble a little bit looser.
12:26 I think this Raider team goes up to Denver and I did not feel this when I made my predictions
12:33 when the schedule came out.
12:35 I think they're playing with a lot of house money and I think all the pressure is on Denver.
12:39 What do you think of that?
12:42 I would agree.
12:43 I think the pressure is definitely on Denver.
12:44 I think even when you look beyond week one, you look around the division, I don't think
12:48 there's pressure on Kansas City.
12:50 There's expectations, obviously, they have the best quarterback in the league.
12:55 One of the all-time great coach in Andy Reid.
12:58 They just won a Super Bowl second in the last few years.
13:01 So there's expectations there, but they should be very good again.
13:06 But I think there's pressure on Denver and I think there's pressure on LA too, because
13:10 the Chargers have had a playoff near miss two years ago, late in the season, against
13:18 the Raiders.
13:19 They end up missing the playoffs.
13:21 And last year, they get in and they blow a 27-0 lead to the Jaguars.
13:26 And they have a really good young quarterback, Justin Herbert, but they have a head coach
13:30 who's a bit on the hot seat.
13:32 And I think if Brandon Staley doesn't show something this year, he might be on his way
13:36 out.
13:37 He's got a little more who I think should help there as the offensive coordinator, but
13:41 there's pressure on them too.
13:42 In the division, the Raiders have, I think, the least amount of pressure by far on them,
13:48 at least externally, like you said.
13:51 And then when you look, again, some of those toss-up games that I mentioned early in the
13:57 season, and again, we don't know how the season's going to play out once it gets going.
14:00 We don't know what injuries are going to happen.
14:02 We don't know what teams are going to look like.
14:04 But just looking ahead on paper at the schedule going into the year, there's a lot more pressure,
14:11 I think, externally on the Steelers than on the Raiders, because they've got to see if
14:16 Kenny Pickett takes the next step up and becomes the franchise quarterback they think he can
14:19 be.
14:20 And they've also had a little bit of a playoff drought there, which is uncharacteristic for
14:24 their franchise.
14:27 There's more pressure on the Patriots because they've had a couple of losing seasons, even
14:31 though they were in the playoffs two years ago, and they've got to see if Mac Jones is
14:35 going to be the guy.
14:36 There's more pressure on the Bears coming into the season because, again, there's expectations
14:42 on Justin Fields taking a big leap, and if he doesn't, then it's a problem.
14:47 And I think the Packers are playing with a little bit of house money this year coming
14:52 into the year because nobody's really expecting that much of them without Aaron Rodgers, although,
14:59 you know --
15:00 I think they're going to win the AFC Norris.
15:04 There is some pressure on them.
15:05 Hey, hey, let me just say something.
15:07 A lot of the kids watching right now are going to have no idea.
15:09 Oh, no.
15:10 The Buccaneers Blue Division.
15:11 Yeah.
15:12 But you're going to know -- you know what I mean when I say the NFC Norris division.
15:16 Yes, exactly.
15:18 And I still remember all the old highlights in the '90s with Chris Berman calling it that.
15:24 The NFC Norris.
15:26 That's back when the Buccaneers were in that division, which tells you that's something
15:30 kids aren't going to understand.
15:32 But there is some pressure on Jordan Love not to be Aaron Rodgers, but to show that,
15:40 you know, this is a guy that they can trust as their next franchise quarterback.
15:45 So there isn't that pressure on the Raiders.
15:50 This could be a possibility for them to maybe play a little loose early in the season for
15:55 seven or eight weeks and win a couple more games that people may not expect.
15:59 Yep.
16:00 I'm telling you.
16:01 And this gets us to the third point I want to discuss today.
16:05 Externally, even from their fans, there isn't a ton of pressure on the Raiders.
16:12 But the pressure they are feeling is on the inside.
16:15 Now I want to be careful how I word this.
16:23 I'm not going to tell you what he said, but I will tell you what I said.
16:28 Josh McDaniels and I in the locker room had a conversation.
16:31 It was off the record.
16:32 I'm just going to tell you what I said.
16:34 I would never, ever betray anybody, Josh or anybody.
16:39 But I said to him, it is impressive to me how this team is holding themselves to a standard.
16:50 The first day in L.A., Matt, I mean, Max, the guys, they were all mad.
16:55 And they won that practice.
16:56 They didn't dominate, but they won it.
16:59 And they were mad.
17:00 Hey, this isn't how we play.
17:02 I'm not tolerating this.
17:05 I want this.
17:06 I want this.
17:07 And Josh, to his credit, and this is, there are a lot of things now where he's different
17:14 than Denver, a lot.
17:17 This is one of them.
17:19 He isn't trying to be Bill Belichick.
17:22 He learned in his failure.
17:24 And we all have been in our lives humiliated or embarrassed or torn down and taken down
17:30 a few steps.
17:31 I certainly have.
17:33 And you learn from that if you're smart.
17:36 And he has.
17:38 And he has just backed away and let the team take ownership of the team.
17:43 They believe in him.
17:45 They trust him.
17:47 And they're setting that standard now.
17:49 Hey, because the Raiders of old, you'd see them go to KC and almost upset or upset the
17:56 Chiefs.
17:57 And then the next week, they're playing a nobody who sucks.
18:01 And they lose or barely have any success.
18:06 And you can't be a championship team playing up or down to the level of your competition.
18:09 It's just got to each week, you're playing yourself.
18:12 And they're doing that.
18:13 And Matt, I'm telling you, the pressure they're feeling, and I think this is the good pressure,
18:18 it's from themselves.
18:19 Hey, we know we're better.
18:21 Hey, we know we can do better than this.
18:23 Hey, we got to play up.
18:25 And to Josh's credit, it isn't manufactured by the coach.
18:30 And I'm in that locker room.
18:31 I laugh at people, you're just being a voice of the, no, I'm telling you what I'm seeing
18:36 what the players are telling me off the record, more so than on.
18:39 And I just think that's the pressure you want a team to have.
18:43 I was not expecting it to be honest with you, Matt.
18:47 I thought it would be there, but not like it is now.
18:51 Kind of like Aiden O'Connell, I said I thought he was going to be a great quarterback.
18:55 I thought he had a chance of being a franchise quarterback at one day in his career.
18:59 I did not think he would be competing with Brian Hoyer.
19:02 Sorry, I was thinking about Brian's little brother.
19:06 I didn't think he would be competing with Brian right now.
19:09 He's farther along.
19:10 I think the Raider culture is farther along than I thought.
19:13 And to me, our second question was the pressure is not there from the outside, but our third
19:18 one is it is from the inside and that's good pressure.
19:22 I would agree.
19:23 I think anytime you had internal mechanisms in place, that's where players are holding
19:29 themselves accountable, coaches are holding themselves accountable and the players accountable.
19:35 That's great.
19:36 You know, I think any type of self-policing that goes on in the locker room like that
19:41 and kind of, you know, where there's clear leadership and there's clear focus and consistency.
19:47 That's a word that we talked about a lot last week.
19:50 And I saw Josh McDaniels mentioned some of his postgame comments talking about why he
19:55 chose to play a bunch of the starters against the Rams over the weekend.
20:01 You're searching for that kind of consistency, that consistent effort.
20:05 Listen, upsets happen in the NFL.
20:08 Any given Sunday, you're going to have some letdowns.
20:11 You're going to have some weeks where you play up and beat a team that is better than
20:14 you.
20:15 But I think that last year, the game to me that signified how much as an outsider, how
20:25 much of a mess last season was and disappointment was the loss of the Colts.
20:31 A team at home, you're playing them at home.
20:34 The Raiders at that point were still kind of hanging around the playoff picture and
20:40 the Colts had given up.
20:42 They hired Matt Saturday off his couch.
20:45 Jeff Saturday, we're all saying the wrong name.
20:48 They hired Jeff Saturday off his couch and they looked horrendous the entire time he
20:56 was there except for that game that they won.
20:59 And now you're looking at that can't happen.
21:02 You know, if we go to Arrowhead, we lose to the Papaholmes and the Chiefs, okay.
21:08 You know, we go to Buffalo, we lose to Josh Allen and the Bills.
21:11 They're very good.
21:12 That happens.
21:13 But you can't have a game where you have a flat effort or you're playing a team that
21:22 is beatable or is struggling and you give them life like that.
21:27 That's the sign of, you know, when you eliminate that, that's the sign of a team that's trying
21:32 to or about to make progress to the next step.
21:36 And I think that that's really crucial over the first half of the season for the Raiders
21:40 because the last eight or nine games, with the exception of probably the Colts again
21:46 on paper, even though that game's on the road, the last eight or nine games are really tough
21:49 for the Raiders.
21:50 Yep, I agree, Matt.
21:53 I'm telling you, I'm very impressed.
21:57 Listen, this team has weaknesses on the field.
22:00 We're not pretending that they don't.
22:02 Got a lot of young players.
22:03 They're going to make young player mistakes.
22:06 But I am very impressed culture-wise.
22:09 This is not even the same team from last year.
22:13 It's just so different.
22:15 It's almost mind-boggling, if I can be so blunt.
22:19 It is fascinating for me to see.
22:22 Okay, last thing I want to talk about, because you touched it and this was our fourth point,
22:27 I'm going to actually talk to Josh McDaniels about it this week, is that good teams take
22:36 care of beating the teams they should beat and then somehow find a way to maybe sneak
22:43 one.
22:44 I always say this, I remember, I believe it was Nick Saban, I'm almost certain it was
22:50 Nick.
22:51 It could have been Joe Bowden, it could have been George Perlis, but it was one of those
22:55 guys.
22:56 But I think it was Nick told me once, good teams find a way to win when they're not playing
23:02 good.
23:05 And I thought that was that they just somehow instinctively inside of them.
23:10 I remember last year, I think the Raiders were up 17-0 or something like that against
23:15 Kansas City.
23:17 They were up, it was, they had, several times last year they had big leads.
23:21 But I specifically remember the Kansas City game.
23:24 And I remember thinking to myself, Kansas City is going to find a way to come back and
23:28 win this.
23:29 And they did, because good teams find a way when they're not playing good to just make
23:34 a play.
23:36 To me, the culture step, which is holding yourself to a standard is the first step on
23:42 getting to a championship level.
23:44 The next step now is winning games when you're not playing good.
23:49 And to me, there are four or five steps.
23:50 I'm going to actually talk about those and write about those before the season.
23:53 But I think the first step is setting a standard where the players set it, where we're not
24:00 playing other teams or playing ourselves.
24:03 The second standard is even when I'm not playing good, I find a way to win.
24:07 That's the next step for the Raiders now that they're showing that first.
24:10 Do you agree or disagree?
24:12 I would agree.
24:13 And I think the analogy that I'm going to make here is one I've heard on television
24:19 a bunch of times from guys who are starting pitchers in the major leagues.
24:24 And if you're an ace, you're a top line, front line starter, they say, you know, if you make
24:30 30 starts in a season, there's going to be at least, you know, five of them where you're
24:34 just you don't have it.
24:35 No matter how good of a pitcher you are, you're just bad.
24:38 You just it's a day where they're hitting you or something's not working and you're
24:42 going to get you're going to get shelved a little bit.
24:45 And then there's probably, you know, 12 to 15 days where you're lights out and you feel
24:51 like nobody can hit you and there's a reason why you're one of the best at what you do.
24:56 And then after that, those other, you know, nine to 12 starts where you're kind of in
25:05 the middle, where something feels OK, but you just don't feel as sharp as you normally
25:10 do.
25:11 You don't feel like an ace.
25:12 You don't feel like the best you can be.
25:16 The good teams, the good pitchers, the great teams, great pitchers, they grind those out
25:21 and they find enough wins or good performances out of those games in the middle.
25:27 And that's what you're looking at.
25:28 I think when you're a team, you're a great NFL team or really good NFL team.
25:34 There's got to be some weeks where you dominate the other team.
25:37 Things are clicking on all cylinders.
25:38 Maybe you're playing a team that's really bad.
25:40 You're going to now there's going to be a couple of weeks a year where you have a letdown
25:45 or maybe you play against a team that also is really good and they get the better of
25:49 you that week.
25:51 But there's there's going to be weeks where.
25:55 Two or three plays make a difference or maybe even if you're the better team on paper, you
26:01 don't have your best your A game that day, you have a C plus or a B game and the other
26:05 teams playing it's a game the best that they can play.
26:09 How do you kind of find yourself within that game, within the context of the game, say
26:14 what do we need to do to secure a win?
26:16 I think that's the key to a development for any franchise in the NFL.
26:22 I remember I covered Justin Verlander for the Tigers and I remember one game where he
26:32 I think he threw maybe six innings, seven innings, but or maybe six and a third and
26:38 he was OK and maybe losing three to could have been two, one, four, two.
26:44 I don't know, but he was losing and.
26:49 He walks off the mound and comes gets up on them.
26:52 You could tell there was something going on, gets up on the mound and he ends up pitching
26:55 long enough.
26:56 His team gets the lead.
26:57 He gets the win.
26:58 And I'm talking to him in the locker in the clubhouse afterwards, and at that time I just
27:02 always called him Rocket.
27:04 I know that there's Roger Clemens, but he was a young kid and I just he's such a great
27:08 guy.
27:09 I really like him and I'm just kind of talking about what happened when you went off that
27:13 mound.
27:14 And he laughed, he goes, you saw that, huh?
27:16 And I said, yeah, and he goes.
27:18 I just reminded myself.
27:21 Everything isn't working for me, so just throw strikes and trust my teammates.
27:25 Just throw strikes that probably aren't going to get jacked out of the house.
27:29 Trust my teammates to play good defense and get back in.
27:31 Well, it was just a short time later he threw a no hitter.
27:36 And I'm there at his locker in the clubhouse and joke with him and laugh with him.
27:43 And the next day or a couple of days later, I don't remember, but I'm back in the locker
27:47 room.
27:48 It's a day he's not pitching.
27:49 I walk over and I go, hey, Rocket, it was a different day than the day you had to remind
27:53 yourself.
27:54 He says, oh man, it sure was.
27:55 And my point is going along exactly with you.
27:58 It's when the days you don't have it, okay, I'm going to trust my defense today.
28:02 I'm going to trust my special teams to make a play.
28:05 And then the days you do have it, oh, watch out, here come Jimmy and Devontae.
28:09 That's the next step for a good team, isn't it?
28:11 Without a doubt.
28:12 And I think that that's something you're hoping to see from the Raiders throughout this season.
28:17 I think that this year, I know this, you know, coming off of playoffs two years ago and then
28:25 going back to six wins last year was a huge disappointment, but I don't think this year
28:28 has to be a playoffs or bust season for the Raiders.
28:33 You know, it's why I said nine wins, right?
28:36 That may get to me and it might not, you know, or even if they win, you know, eight games
28:40 or eight, nine, yes, it's a losing season, but you're in the middle, you're in the middle
28:44 class, so to speak, in the NFL and you're taking steps to get to the next level.
28:50 They need to build that culture, to build that up and to feel like, you know, the Raiders
28:58 aren't just because we're the Raiders, we're not going to screw this up.
29:01 Oh no, here comes same old Raiders.
29:03 They need to get beyond that.
29:05 And I think that's a huge, huge point for them this year to try to make to their fan
29:11 base and make two among themselves.
29:12 You know, I'm not making any excuses.
29:16 Here's the deal.
29:18 If Jimmy stays healthy and they get to nine wins, I don't think they go to the playoffs.
29:23 But what, and if they get to the playoffs, I don't think they're a Super Bowl team.
29:27 So I mean, if you're not going to be the one hoisting the Lombardi, then what's a success?
29:33 I think when this season is over, Raider Nation and internally the Raiders building has to
29:43 be able to look back at the steps of success, culture, winning games when you're not playing
29:50 good and other things, discipline.
29:53 And they have to be able to say, okay, we took three or four steps up today.
29:57 We're headed to where to me, the playoffs are, or bust for a good season is next year.
30:03 I don't think it's this year.
30:07 I think this year is showing steps, showing progress and moving along to me that I think
30:15 that's a big one.
30:16 Agreed.
30:17 A hundred percent.
30:18 I think this is building a culture, building that foundation, setting you up for 2024 as
30:25 a year where you want to be in the playoffs and making some noise in the division where
30:30 you want to feel like you are at least in the running with the cheese for the division
30:35 title.
30:36 Yep.
30:37 I agree.
30:38 And you know what?
30:39 If this team gets to nine wins or somehow steals when it gets to 10, they're going to
30:41 be in the running this year.
30:42 Don't think they're going to get it, but they're going to be in the running.
30:45 It's going to be an exciting season.
30:46 All right.
30:47 Now listen, next week, Matt and I are going to come back with the episode everybody loves.
30:54 We're going to give our predictions and we've already given our Raider predictions.
31:00 We're going to look ahead to each division, each conference.
31:05 We're going to talk Super Bowls.
31:07 We're going to talk it all.
31:08 That's next week.
31:09 It's going to be a lot of fun, Matt.
31:10 I appreciate you and your friendship, my friend.
31:13 Anytime, Matt.
31:14 Always a pleasure.
31:15 All right.
31:16 Now talk to you soon.
31:17 Bye, everybody.
31:18 This is Hondo Carpenter from Sports Illustrated's Fan Nation, Las Vegas Raiders Insider Podcast,
31:22 part of the Fans First Sports Network, and that's the one and only, the legend, the great
31:25 Matt Hladdy.