Chiefs will prepare for Minshew Mania in Week 8 after Aidan O'Connell's injury

The Las Vegas Raiders have hosted a carousel of sorts at quarterback this season through seven weeks, with both Aidan O'Connell and Gardner Minshew taking their turns under center in attempts to solve the team's offensive puzzle. Going forward for the next month or so, however, the Raiders now find themselves forced to go with one option only.

On Monday, news broke via NFL reporter Ian Rapoport about the status of O'Connell for the Raiders—namely that he had suffered a broken thumb in a loss to the Los Angeles Rams in Week 7.

For now, the Raiders are down to Minshew as the obvious starter given that O'Connell's timeline to return to the field is reportedly at 4-6 weeks. Consequently the Raiders made it official by placing O'Connell on the team's injured reserve list.

The short-term picture at quarterback has been clarified for the Las Vegas Raiders for the next few weeks.

The Kansas City Chiefs are next up on the Raiders' regular-season schedule, the first of two scheduled meetings between the AFC West rivals. The two teams are on completely different trajectories, not only for 2024 but for most of the last decade. This season, the Raiders are already 4.5 games back in the standings through only seven weeks.

Gardner Minshew has only started a single game against the Chiefs in his entire NFL career dating back to 2019. In that game, he actually played fairly well but the Jacksonville Jaguars fell to Kansas City by a final score of 40-26 that day. Minshew came on in relief of an injured Nick Foles in that game and completed 22 of 25 passes for 275 passing yards and 2 touchdowns.

So far this season, Minshew is 2-3 as a starter for the Raiders with 4 touchdown passes and 8 interceptions (tied with Patrick Mahomes for the league lead). He's completed 65.5 percent of his throws and has a 73.2 passer rating for the year.