With Jimmy Garoppolo unavailable due to a back injury, Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels elected to go with veteran Brian Hoyer to start against the Bears over rookie Aidan O’Connell.
The result was a 30-12 loss to a Chicago team starting undrafted rookie Tyson Bagent. Hoyer was 17-of-32 for 129 yards with two interceptions before he was replaced by O’Connell in the fourth quarter with the game out of reach.
O’Connell finished 10-of-13 for 75 yards with a touchdown and a pick.
McDaniels said postgame that he determined Hoyer would start based on what he’d seen in practice.
“I saw Aidan in the L.A. game. Had an opportunity to really understand what was going on there. Saw Brian last week in the New England game,” McDaniels said. “So just made a decision to try to go with the veteran guy and try to go out there and play a solid game.
“I’m not going to second guess that.”
McDaniels was asked if he considered making a QB change at halftime, with the team down 14-3 and he said not really.
“I mean, look, I don’t think everything was the quarterback’s fault, certainly,” McDaniels said. “I thought there were some missed opportunities that we had.”
McDaniels conceded that there was some thought to seeing what the team has in O’Connell, but also noted, “This isn’t the preseason anymore.”
“We had an entire week of practice in L.A., most of the week,” McDaniels said, referring to the team’s joint training camp practices with the Rams. “We had an opportunity to practice him. There were some good things. There was some other things that we needed to work on and fix and obviously get better and improve. Such is life in that regard.
“When your starter is not available, you’re trying to make what you think is the best decision for the team. Again, I don’t put this all on one person now. Let’s make sure we make that clear. There’s a lot of people that can do a better job of what we did today. That’s what we’re going to need to do.”
The Raiders are now 3-4 and will take on the 5-2 Lions on the road next Monday night in Detroit.