Injury was added to insult for Geno Smith in the Raiders' Thursday night loss to the Broncos.
On a night in which nothing went right for Smith and the beleaguered Las Vegas offense, the quarterback suffered a quad contusion on the opening play of the fourth quarter during the team's 10-7 loss to Denver, although head coach Pete Carroll expressed postgame it shouldn't be a long-term issue.
"I don't know," Carroll said when asked if there was any concern for Smith's status in Week 11. "It's not like some other injuries. This is not one that he can’t get back from.”
Smith also downplayed any serious ramifications stemming from the hit.
“Obviously, I just played a game, so it’s not feeling the best," he said, "but I’ll be better as the days goes along, hopefully."
For now, it appears it's simply another hard knock taken by Smith during a game that had plenty of them to go around, as the 35-year-old took six sacks and was limited to 143 yards and an interception on 16-of-26 passing.
Smith's injury occurred on a first-and-10 from the Raiders' 31-yard line. He scrambled right and looked to have some open space to roam, but was instead tripped up by linebacker Nik Bonitto. Though it was unflagged, defensive lineman Malcolm Roach hit Smith late when the QB was already on the ground, inadvertently slamming his knee into the veteran signal-caller's quad.
Trainers attended to Smith following the play and he limped off to the blue tent for further evaluation. Backup Kenny Pickett finished the drive, which lasted just two more plays before a punt.
Smith returned on the following possession but was clearly hobbled. He could be seen wincing in between plays and after any contact from a dominant Denver defense.
“That’s just kinda how I’m wired," Smith said when asked why it was important to return. "I never want to leave my teammates out there alone. I feel like it’s a big responsibility of mine to be out there and to do whatever I can to help us win. I felt like I could try to tough it out, and that’s what I tried to do.”
Regardless of the injury, he managed to go 4 of 4 for 49 yards on that possession, which marked the Raiders' longest of the night with a net of 42 yards. However, a sack and a false start contributed to the Raiders punting it back to the Broncos from midfield.
Smith spent Denver's next drive in the blue tent, as well, but again rushed back into action after cornerback Kyu Blu Kelly's second interception of the night set the team up five yards into Broncos territory.
“He wanted to go back in in the worse way," Carroll said. "He wanted to go finish the game for his teammates. He got whacked in the quad. He got a quad bruise or something, contusion, whatever it is. He got smacked. That’s just him fighting.”
Smith was fighting, but he also might've been stiffening up. He moved around even more gingerly than before and was relegated almost entirely to handoff duty on the ensuing drive. The Raiders ran it with Ashton Jeanty four straight times despite trailing in the latter half of the fourth quarter. Smith didn't attempt a pass until Las Vegas' fifth play on third-and-6, which fell incomplete.
Daniel Carlson then missed a 48-yard field-goal attempt that would've knotted the score on the next snap, returning the ball to the Broncos with 4:26 remaining.
As Denver began to milk away the clock, Las Vegas declared Smith questionable to return.
"He would not have been able to answer the next time out," Carroll said. "He wasn’t going back. But he tried.”
Any backup heroics by Pickett were not to be. The Broncos found a groove that had eluded both teams for most the night amid a defensive struggle, picking up three first downs to ensure the Raiders lost without seeing the ball again.
The defeat dropped Las Vegas to 2-7 on the season, one loss away from the team's second four-game losing streak of the year.
Smith has not played up to the standard he has set in the back half of his career, starting with his 2022 AP NFL Comeback Player of the Year campaign he put together as a Seattle Seahawk under Pete Carroll.
Traded to Vegas for a reunion with his old coach, Smith has thrown for 1,844 yards, 11 touchdowns and a league-leading 12 interceptions through nine games. He now has a quad bruise to overcome during the team's mini-bye in order to play -- and hopefully start playing well -- against the Cowboys on Monday Night Football on Nov. 17.
It's luckily not a major injury, but it's yet another setback for a Raiders squad struggling to establish success in Carroll and Smith's first year in Sin City.