Antonio Pierce benched quarterback Gardner Minshew in favor of O’Connell this week. His hope was the second-year quarterback who started 10 games last year would provide the offense with a much-needed jolt. Instead, the decision was rendered meaningless as the offense put forth a miserable outing against the Steelers.

Aidan O’Connell completed 67.5 percent of his passes, but that’s a misleading figure given most of his successful passes came on quick dump-offs and short throws. On intermediate and deep throws, O’Connell was frequently inaccurate and missed several opportunities to extend drives or create big plays. He finished with 227 passing yards, one meaningless touchdown and a horrendous interception that came on a terrible overthrow.

That doesn’t mean the Raiders made a mistake in benching Gardner Minshew. He’s been bad since the Raiders’ win over the Baltimore Ravens in Week 2, and there wasn’t much reason to believe he was going to turn things around.

What it does mean is that the Raiders don’t have an answer at quarterback on their roster. They could go back to Minshew or stick with O’Connell, but it doesn’t really feel like it matters either way.