Dennis Allen names Matt Schaub Raiders starting quarterback, compares him to Kurt Warner

When a team trades for a quarterback and pays him the amount of money the Raiders are paying Matt Schaub, you would expect he would be the starting quarterback. Even still, often times the coaches will let it be known the quarterback competition is open. Not this time.

Dennis Allen made it plainly clear that it's Schaub's job to lose.

"We brought Matt Schaub in to be our starting quarterback," said Dennis Allen. "We feel very confident that he is going to be able to come in and function in that role and be outstanding for us. Obviously, we love having competition within the team, but right now Matt Schaub is our starting quarterback."

He didn't stop there. He made a pretty lofty comparison when speaking of Schaub -- Hall of Fame caliber QB, Kurt Warner.

"A guy that comes to my mind is a guy like Kurt Warner, who went to a Super Bowl, won a Super Bowl with St. Louis, went on to go play for the New York Giants, his career didn't go as well as everybody would have thought. Really, a lot of people thought he was done. Then he goes into Arizona and kind of resurrects his career. So, I think a change of scenery will be outstanding for Matt. I just think it's a good situation for both Matt Schaub and for the Oakland Raiders."

I guess if the Raiders think they have a player with the potential to resurrect his career at a late stage the way Warner did, it makes sense you would give that player every opportunity to do it.

The Raiders went through this last year as well with Reggie McKenzie naming Matt Flynn the starter as soon as the Raiders traded for him. He did go into camp as the starter but by the time the end of the preseason rolled around, he hadn't shown enough to earn the right to keep that job, so they handed the ball to Terrelle Pryor.

This situation is not quite Matt Flynn and it is not quite Kurt Warner. It is somewhere in between. Kurt Warner had won a Super Bowl and was league MVP before they gave up on him. Matt Flynn had two good games as a career backup. Schaub had a nice career in Houston with two Pro Bowls and three 4000-yard seasons followed by a terrible 2013 season that ended his tenure there.

He has a much better chance of being given the ball at the beginning of the season based on his previous seasons than Flynn based on... pretty much nothing.

This leaves Matt McGloin in an even tougher situation than he was last season when he climbed from being the fifth quarterback up to starter by midseason. That doesn't mean it can't be done, it just means it is unlikely to happen from the opening of the season.

If Schaub stinks it up again, he could end up just as he was last season in Houston -- with an undrafted free agent taking his place at midseason. That, of course, would be to the detriment of the Raiders as the switch would most likely not be made until the season was lost.

But let's cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, we know that Schaub will get the ball first and very like take the first snap of the regular season as well.