Luke Gatesy on QB switch: We have to make sure we take care of the football

After five games, the Raiders made a quarterback switch, with Aidan O'Connell set to start Sunday against the Steelers over Gardner Minshew.

Although Minshew put some positive plays into the film, there were too many turnovers in the end. Minshew has completed 70.7 percent of his passes so far this season for 1,014 yards with four touchdowns, five interceptions and one lost fumble.

“I think Gardner has done a really good job. He really did,” offensive coordinator Luke Getsy said in his Thursday news conference. “I think he fully understood the expectations of the play. I think he got the type of crime. His ability to work in and out of the huddle, all those things, I don't think we've seen any of those things show.

“And then, like I said, I think it just comes down to this, we've got to make sure we take care of the football. In this game, especially at the NFL level, it's usually decided by that. And then we had a few plays here and there that didn't give us a chance to win. And so, overall, we decided we were going to try another thing.”

Minshew and O'Connell competed to be Las Vegas' QB1 throughout the offseason and training camp, with Minshew's experience ultimately winning out. But as head coach Antonio Pierce did earlier in the week, Getsy praised the way O'Connell handled things after the contest — noting how the young QB has continued to make progress in practice and on the field.

“I think the nice part of going through the competition part of it in the offseason, we all got to know each other pretty well,” Getsy said. “[I] The competitiveness that he brings, the leadership that he brings and the fact that he's not a starter — he's in the game plan, he's in all of those things, so there's a confidence and there's a comfort in us knowing 'just this guy. Going to pick up and roll with. No worries about any of that sort of thing with Aidan.

“And I think Aidan has a lot of the traits that you saw last year, and we're just going to build on that and keep growing. I think like anything, he's a guy that hasn't played a ton of ball, and he's going to get better every day. And we've seen that over the last five or six weeks, even when that guy wasn't there.”

O'Connell appeared in 11 games last year as a rookie with 10 starts, completing 62.1 percent of his passes for 2,218 yards with 12 touchdowns and seven interceptions. In two games of mop-up duty this season, he completed 19-of-32 throws for 176 yards with a touchdown and a pick.