Getty Las Vegas Raiders helmet.
While the NFL continues to have an iron grip on the world of football, that hasn’t stopped new leagues from trying to get in on the action. The United States Football League, or USFL, is set to make its debut on April 16, 2022, and could serve as a football league for fans to watch while the NFL and college football are in their offseasons. The USFL should offer opportunities to players who couldn’t cut it in the NFL.
The league held its draft on Tuesday and there are some notable former NFL players to get selected. Among the early picks in the draft was former Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Kyle Sloter. He was selected eighth overall by the New Orleans Breakers.
With the 8th pick in the #USFLDraft, the Breakers select Kyle Sloter 🌊
Sloter has bounced around the NFL for years now but has never played in a regular season game. He was originally an undrafted free agent signing for the Denver Broncos in 2017 but never made the team’s active roster. His longest stint was with the Minnesota Vikings, which lasted two seasons and a brief stint during the 2021 season. He spent much of 2021 with the Raiders. He spent a portion of the offseason and was signed to the practice squad when Marcus Mariota was hurt. The 6-foot-5 Sloter is an interesting prospect for the USFL to have.
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Raiders Will Be in Need of Backup QB
Now that one of the Raiders’ backup quarterbacks from last season is off to the USFL, it shines a light on the fact that the team doesn’t have a backup quarterback on the roster for next season. Derek Carr is the only quarterback contract while Mariota and Nathan Peterman are free agents.
The Raiders could try to keep one of the two backups from last year but new head coach Josh McDaniels will be running a different system than Jon Gruden did. He’ll likely want to bring in his own guys. McDaniels knows how important it is to have a good backup so Las Vegas will almost certainly try to find one this offseason.
Will Raiders Draft a QB?
With McDaniels taking over the Raiders, there could be a lot of changes with how the team does things. Despite his reputation as a quarterback guru, Gruden actually liked working with veteran quarterbacks and rarely tried to develop rookies. McDaniels is quite different. He’s developed a number of quarterbacks over his career.
Tom Brady was established in New England before McDaniels became the offensive coordinator but the coach played a hand in developing Matt Cassel, Jimmy Garoppolo, Jacoby Brissett and Mac Jones. The early indications are that he likes Carr and wants to keep him on as the starter but don’t be surprised if the Raiders use a draft pick on a quarterback after the third round. Gruden didn’t draft a single quarterback in any of his four drafts with the team so it remains to be seen how Carr will feel about that.
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Ex-Raiders QB Selected in 1st Round of USFL Draft