Chase Garbers Plays Entire Second Half of Raiders’ Preseason Game
The Las Vegas Raiders took a long look at former Cal quarterback Chase Garbers, who played the entire second half in the Raiders’ 15-13 win over the Miami Dolphins in a preseason game on Saturday.
Ex-Cal outside linebacker Cameron Goode had a strong game for the Dolphins in his bid to make Miami’s regular-season roster as a rookie, but we will focus on Garbers first.
Garbers’ numbers in his third NFL preseason game were decent – 6-for-9, 54 passing yards, no touchdowns, no interceptions, 82.6 passer rating, 44 rushing yards, two sacks. But the fact that the Raiders gave him so much playing time suggests they like what they have seen so far in Garbers and want to make a decision on what they want to do with him. Unfortunately, Garbers did not leave a positive impression on the final pass play that was called, which we will touch on later.
In his three preseason games, Garbers is 12-for-18 for 108 yards, no touchdowns and no interceptions.
He is listed as the Raiders’ fourth-team quarterback, and with Derek Carr the unquestioned starter and Jarrett Stidham his presumptive backup, Garbers would have to beat out Nick Mullens for the No. 3 quarterback spot, and that assumes Las Vegas would keep three quarterbacks instead of two. The fact that the Raiders signed Garbers as an undrafted free agent does not help his cause.
Mullens has made 17 regular-season NFL starts and was 6-for-9 for 39 yards, with no TDs or picks and a 75.7 passer rating Saturday.
Teams must reduce their roster to 80 players by Tuesday, and Garbers hopes he can stick around for next weekend’s final preseason game. On August 30, two days after the final exhibition game, teams must get down to the 53-man regular-season roster.
Garbers entered the game on the Raiders’ first offensive possession of the second half and played the rest of the game. His most impressive contribution was his ability to scramble. At Cal, he set a school record for career rushing yards by a quarterback, and he had two long scrambles Saturday.
He was 3-for-4 for 11 yards on his first drive, which ended with a field goal. He scrambled for 18 yards on the fifth play of that drive, and had another run of 7 yards negated by an offensive penalty. He also had an incompletion in that possession wiped out by a defensive penalty.
Garbers threw his best pass of the day on the second possession, a 24-yard, back-shoulder completion to Jesper Horsted.
“That’s a really nice throw,” Raiders TV analyst Matt Millen said.
The Raiders did not score on that possession, but they got a field goal on the next one – a nine-play, 62-yard drive directed by Garbers that ended with what became the game-winning field goal.
Garbers set up the field goal with a 28-yard scramble on the first play of that drive. But he had a chance to make a major impression when the Raiders faced a third-and-goal from the Dolphins’ 4-yard line. But Garbers could not find a receiver on that play, waited too long and was sacked.
As the TV analysts noted, “The ball’s got to come out.”
When the Dolphins subsequently missed a field goal that would have put them ahead with 1:34 remaining, the Raiders merely ran out the clock on Garbers’ final possession.
It was on that final Raiders possession that Goode put a damper on what had been a strong performance. On the first play of that Las Vegas drive, Raiders running back Brittain Brown got outside of Goode, who failed to set the edge, and ran for 36 yards. That won’t look good on the tape, but the rest of Goode's performance was impressive as he also played the entire second half.
Goode made a big play on the Raiders’ first drive of the second half by stopping Brown for a 1-yard loss after Brown caught a pass from Garbers on a second-and-13 play from the Miami 14-yard line. That was key because there were questions whether Goode would be able to cover running backs as pass receivers in space. Goode also made two stops for gains of 2 yards each on runs by running backs in that possession.
He finished the game with five tackles, including three solo stops and a tackle for loss. This is in addition to his impressive numbers in his previous preseason game -- six tackles, including five solo stops, a pass defensed and a fumble recovery.
Goode, a seventh-round draft pick of the Dolphins this past spring, is listed as Miami’s third-team weakside outside linebacker, so he needs to do something special.
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