Author: Michael

With exactly one month left until the 2023-24 NFL season kicks off, OutKick is unveiling its team-by-team preview series. Over the course of the next four weeks, we are going division-by-division, covering all 32 NFL teams. The series continues with the AFC and NFC West, now taking a look at last year’s third-place finisher in the AFC West, the Las Vegas Raiders.
Las Vegas Raiders 2022-23 Record: 6-11

Las Vegas Raiders 2023-24 Win Total Over/Under: 6.5

Offseason Moves

The Las Vegas Raiders made a big decision towards the end of last season to move on from quarterback Derek Carr.

So, it’s going to be Sam Howell for the Washington Commanders.
What seemed like a backup plan when last season ended, then became became a plan more and more people accepted before free agency and the draft, and looked like the plan that was actually going to be the path during the offseason program and camps, is now nearly sealed.
The Washington Commanders’ starting quarterback job is Howell’s to lose. This according to multiple NFL sources both in and outside Washington.

The Bengals’ coaches will tell anyone who’ll listen that their receiver room is unique. And, yes, they are talking about how Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd can tie defenses into a pretzel and give coaches headaches trying to figure out how they can get unknotted.
But it’s more than just the otherworldly collection of talent on display at every practice in July and August, the same way it is on the field in the fall.

OutKick’s Clay Travis and Tomi Lahren joined Sean Hannity to discuss the U.S. women’s national team’s jaw-dropping exit from the Women’s World Cup.
The disappointing exit in the Round of 16 capped a contentious World Cup for the U.S. women’s team. This year’s stunted World Cup run was an all-time collapse for USWNT stars like Megan Rapinoe.
Rapinoe and USWNT teammates took ridiculous stances to challenge norms heading into the 2023 World Cup.

Rodney Thomas, the dad of Indianapolis Colts safety Rodney Thomas II, was charged with killing a bald eagle with an air rifle in May. He’s since been appointed a federal public defender, which means American taxpayers are on the hook for covering the legal fees surrounding the anti-American crime.
The 50-year-old Thomas was indicted on a misdemeanor violation of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act in July, two months after allegedly shooting and killing a bald eagle in Mt. Pleasant, Penn.

There would be nothing reasonable or rational about California and Stanford joining the Atlantic Coast Conference. But these are not reasonable, rational times. These are desperate times, and this would be a desperate measure—and perhaps also a useful life raft for all involved parties.
For more than a year, the ACC has mulled various ways to escape its media-rights revenue quagmire, a deal with ESPN that has increasingly impatient member schools locked in at a discounted rate until 2036.

Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images
Aaron Boone gave an ejection performance for the ages against the White Sox.
The New York Yankees entered this season as the second biggest favorite to win the World Series. Instead, the Yankees find themselves in last place in the AL East, having their version of a season from hell despite still being a few games over .500. Just about the only team more disappointing than New York is the Chicago White Sox, and on Monday the teams began a three-game series in what’s quickly become a lost year for both.

Regardless of how Trey Lance responds to a challenge to be consistently accurate in the pocket, or how fast Sam Darnold can master the scheme, Brock Purdy is the guy.

Chargers QB Justin Herbert has a Philip Rivers-like command of the team’s offense under new coordinator Kellen Moore: “I can start to see him really maturing.

The Cursing of the Boonebino!
New York Yankees skipper Aaron Boone put on a real show in Monday’s game against the Chicago White Sox.
Boone didn’t last till the end of the game after getting ejected by home umpire Laz Diaz, but the ticket back to the clubhouse for Boone proved worth the price of admission.

Home umpire Laz Diaz and manager Aaron Boone. (Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images)

In a fit of rage, Aaron Boone argued Diaz’s bad streak of strikeout calls with Kyle Higashioka up to bat and Chicago’s Bryan Shaw on the mound.