Why the Raiders Are All-In on Kenny Pickett

Shortly after O'Connell's injury, the Raiders traded a fifth-round draft pick to the Cleveland Browns in exchange for veteran quarterback Kenny Pickett. Shortly before the Raiders traded for Pickett, Pete Carroll explained what was important to him the team's quarterback search.

"I want somebody who's played. That's what's important, a guy that's had game experience is really huge to me," Carroll said.

There were several reasons the Raiders Traded for Pickett.

Following cutdown day, Raiders General Manager elaborated on his decision to trade away draft capital for Pickett's services. Las Vegas had more a few reasons to make the move.

"I have a lot of respect for the player. He's 15-10 as a starter. He's had opportunities to play. He’s won a Super Bowl last year, so he knows what it looks like. I think I said before, he's a good athlete. He's not too dissimilar from Geno [Smith] in a lot of ways in the way he can move and the offense that we want to run," Spytek said.

"I think sometimes you can get two different types of quarterbacks, and it becomes a big challenge for the offense coordinator, for Chip [Kelly], to kind of match those two up and have the backup quarterback ready to go, should something happen in the middle of a game," Spytek said.

"But with Kenny [Pickett] and the way he kind of mirrors Geno in a lot of ways, that just makes it a little bit easier in what is already a very hard job. And again, he's won in this league. He's somebody we have a lot of respect for. We had great character reports coming with him coming out of Pitt a bunch of years ago, and we just felt like he was a good add for our culture and for our team."

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