There certainly wasn’t any shortage of turnovers in Week 11 of the 2025 regular season, but it’s the interceptions of Geno Smith and Shedeur Sanders that are hogging the headlines. The NFL regular season debut of Sanders proved to be an almost immediate disaster, with the former Colorado Buffalo turning the ball over on just the fourth official pass attempt of his career.
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For Smith and the Las Vegas Raiders, it was simply more of the same. If it wasn’t for Tua Tagovailoa, Smith would be completely unrivaled as the interception king of the season. His lone passing turnover on Monday Night Football marks the third consecutive game in which he has thrown an interception, and the 12-year veteran has now thrown at least one interception in all but two of his 10 starts this season.
Nevertheless, these two struggling signal callers will be tasked with squaring off with one another in Week 12, and according to Richard Sherman, this could be a showcase situation for Sanders. “He’ll be playing against the Raiders and Pete Carroll, who may be looking to make a trade. They are going to decide on a quarterback this offseason,” Sherman suggested.
Considering that the Raiders were once rumored to be in contention for Sanders in the months and weeks that preceded the 2025 NFL Draft, it is worth wondering if some of that initial interest remains within the halls of Las Vegas’ building. Even though Sherman maintained that the franchise is “clearly going to draft a quarterback in the first round based on the way Geno has been playing,” the idea of a solid outing at Allegiant Stadium being Sanders’ ticket out of Cleveland does sound somewhat plausible.
“It’ll be a winnable game for the Browns and this is as good of a chance for Shedeur Sanders. They don’t bring a ton of pressure, they don’t do a ton of exotic things on defense. We’ll see what he’s able to do with it,” Sherman concluded.
Unfortunately for Sanders, oddsmakers are forecasting a different result for this coming Sunday. Las Vegas is currently being booked as a -3.5 point favorite, and with a point total of 36.5, the guys just down the street from the stadium don’t believe that there’s going to be a lot of offensive success on either side.
Then again, if there’s ever been a rookie quarterback who’s been dealt a bad hand, it’s Sanders. He’ll be standing behind one of the worst offensive lines in all of football, and he’ll only have one week’s worth of first-team reps at practice to familiarize himself with the starters. But it’s still an opportunity nonetheless.
With nothing left to lose and everything to gain, there’s no reason for Sanders not to call his shot and make #2 the lucky number of the day in Sin City; he just can’t expect to have much help in doing so, is all.
