Raiders Planning To Keep Marcus Mariota On The Field

Las Vegas Raiders backup quarterback Marcus Mariota's rushing touchdown on a zone-read in the third quarter of the Raiders’ Thanksgiving victory over the Dallas Cowboys clearly left an impact on interim head coach Rich Bisaccia.

Bisaccia said Las Vegas will continue to use Mariota in certain areas moving forward.

“I think you saw Greg [Olson] do a great job of this week is, we had him in there multiple times and he ends up scoring a touchdown for us because of his athletic ability and what he can do in certain situations, but certainly what we are asking him to do,” Bisaccia said Monday “Without giving too much away, I think he is hopefully going to be a part of the packages as we go forward. He practices like he’s preparing to play all the time. And the other thing is, it’s really hard to take No. 4 out from behind the center as well, especially if he’s playing the way he played on Thanksgiving Day.”

This season, Mariota has been used sparingly and in a wild-card option for the Raiders' offense, but got hurt in the Week One win over Baltimore.

Bisaccia was sure to mention the support Carr had for Mariota on the scoring play.

“I think on the touchdown, you saw Derek might have been the first or second guy out there to congratulate him. So, I think Derek is about the team,” Bisaccia said. “Derek is about doing whatever we can do to put ourselves in a position to win a game. I think you see it by the way in which he prepares, by the way in which he plays, and they certainly have a professional relationship with respect to each other’s job and what they are trying to do to help us win.

We might have a chance to see more of Mariota as the Raiders (6-5) will face the Washington Football Team (5-6) in Sunday's Week 13 matchup, with kickoff set for 1:05 PST.


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