10:34am: A last-ditch trade effort will take place, per the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Vincent Bonsignore. That will be unlikely to succeed, but the team will try to collect a low-end asset for a player who will otherwise hit the market soon.
9:35am: After yo-yoing in and out of the Raiders’ starting lineup last season, Gardner Minshew suffered an injury that took him out of that mix. As expected, the Raiders will end that experiment at one season.
The Raiders have informed Minshew he will be cut, NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero reports. No move will take place until March 12, the start of the 2025 league year. This suggests a post-June 1 designation, which would save the Raiders $12.5MM for 2025. If so, it would mark the second straight year a Raiders quarterback becomes a post-June 1 cut; the team designated Jimmy Garoppolo as such in 2024.
Minshew won the Raiders’ starting job out of camp but was benched on multiple occasions during Antonio Pierce‘s season in charge. Pierce expressed frustration to then-GM Tom Telesco about the Raiders’ 2024 QB plan, which centered around Minshew’s two-year, $25MM contract. Both were soon out in Las Vegas, and the Tom Brady-John Spytek-Pete Carroll trio are readying to make a bigger upgrade effort this year. They were in discussions to authorize a near-$100MM guarantee package for Matthew Stafford, but the experienced QB is staying with the Rams.
Although the Raiders most likely were the team that sent the Commanders their lone trade offer for No. 2 overall (as Pierce aimed for a Jayden Daniels reunion), they made their Brock Bowers pick one spot after the Broncos chose Bo Nix. That left the top six QBs — in what might be an impressive draft class at the position — in last year’s crop spoken for. Signed as insurance against the team not coming out of the draft with a high-end prospect, Minshew then became the Raiders’ top option.
Having led the Colts to the playoff precipice as an Anthony Richardson replacement in 2023, Minshew became a sought-after bridge option last year. He did not build on that Indianapolis performance in 2024, though, posting a 9-10 TD-INT ratio and averaging just 6.6 yards per attempt. In Minshew’s defense, the Raiders let Josh Jacobs walk in free agency and traded Davante Adams in-season. Minshew and Aidan O’Connell did help Bowers to a historic season and Jakobi Meyers to a quiet 1,000-yard campaign. While O’Connell remains on his rookie contract, Minshew can begin looking elsewhere.
Minshew, who was due an $11.84MM base salary for 2025, has made 46 career starts — with the Raiders, Colts, Eagles and Jaguars — and has found success as a former sixth-round pick. The six-year veteran will head back to the bridge market and should at least command interest as a backup option for the ’25 season.