Purdue Football: AOC to Las Vegas

Aidan O’Connell didn’t make it out of the fourth round after the Las Vegas Raider orchestrated a trade with the New England Patriots to move into the final spot in the 4th round to select the Purdue quarterback.

Vegas is the ideal place for O’Connell. Josh McDaniels is one of the few coaches in the NFL that prefers a pocket passer, Tom Brady being the clear example. The fact that Raiders moved up to snag Aidan is a good sign for his ability to stick on the roster.

Vegas moved on from long time quarterback Derek Carr this off-season and brought in former McDaniels charge Jimmie Garopollo to run the show. Jimmie G can sling it when he’s healthy, but it seems like he’s healthy about ¹⁄₄ of the time. The other two quarterbacks on the roster are career backup Brian Hoyer and 2nd year quarterback Chase Garbers. I like AOC to secure a roster spot and potentially push Hoyer for back-up job. More likely than not, Hoyer is the short terms solution if Garopollo goes down, but McDaniels will try and turn AOC into a starting quarterback.

This is the absolute best case scenario for Aidan. He’ll go to an offense that won’t ask him to run around and make plays out of the pocket. It was a long wait, but in the end, he couldn’t have landed in a better situation.