An already difficult season for the Las Vegas Raiders took a turn for the worse on Sunday, as the final whistle brought not just another loss but a worrying injury report from head coach Pete Carroll. It could further derail their already disappointing season.

“It’s just kind of jammed up right now,” Carroll said on quarterback Geno Smith’s shoulder injury. “The early indications that they were able to get didn’t show any damage. His shoulder is really locked up. So, we’ll see what that means.”

Smith hurt his shoulder in the third quarter and left for the locker room. He came back in the fourth quarter and again left with two minutes remaining, as his shoulder started to hurt. Consequently, Pete Carroll was forced to start Kenny Pickett. Carroll claimed that the initial scans did not show any damage, and it looked like his shoulder was locked up. Smith’s last pass of the game was to tight end Brock Bowers, who amazed everyone with a single-handed catch.

Early in the first half, he suffered a cut on one of the fingers in his right hand. The medical staff attended to him on the sidelines. But the head coach didn’t know much about it. He was more concerned about the shoulder injury as it could sideline him for many weeks. Everyone is waiting eagerly for further medical evaluations.

“From what I heard, he got his hand cut, and it was bleeding a lot. And so, they just had to stop the bleeding. He got kicked or scraped or something like that. That’s what I heard, I didn’t see that,” Carroll said. “But his shoulder, he got hit pretty good.”

While the focus was on Smith’s shoulder, the Raiders’ sideline was hit with another devastating blow when young cornerback Kyu Blu Kelly went down with a serious knee injury.

Pete Carroll might miss his young cornerback

Vegas native cornerback Kyu Blu Kelly also suffered a left knee injury. The fifth-round pick (157th overall) of the 2023 NFL Draft made a tackle on the wide receiver Marvin Mims in the second quarter, but hurt his knee, which caused a lengthy stoppage as the entire Raiders lineup gathered around him.

Receiver Courtland Sutton sensed in his first glance that the injury was serious and signaled the staff to come out. The medical team came out running and wrapped his left knee in an air cast. Later, they carted him off the field and marked him out of the game. The bigger issue for Pete Carroll is that the 24-year-old cornerback could miss the rest of the season.

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With injuries to Geno Smith and Kyu Blu Kelly, the head coach would have to look into the backups on his roster to continue the season. However, it raises a serious question about their preparedness for the season. They were hoping for a great show this season, but a 2-11 record tells the same failure story year after year.