HENDERSON, Nev. — Aidan O’Connell faced the Los Angeles Chargers in his NFL debut back on Oct. 1, and things got, well, ugly.

The Las Vegas Raiders rookie quarterback was sacked seven times. He fumbled three times and lost two. O’Connell was also picked off once inside the Chargers’ 5-yard line as the Raiders were attempting to score a tying touchdown with a little more than two minutes to play in the eventual 24-17 loss.

Guess who’s coming to dinner Thursday? Yeah, Khalil Mack, who had six of his league-leading 15 sacks that day, & Co. (8:15 p.m. ET, Prime Video).

And yet …

As ugly as things got for O’Connell and the Raiders the last time they faced the Chargers, Sunday’s showing in a 3-0 loss to the Minnesota Vikings was worse.

Much worse.

So much so that any questions as to whether O’Connell, the final pick of the fourth round in April’s NFL draft, is the Raiders’ future at the position might have been answered. It wasn’t that O’Connell was the reason Las Vegas fell to a Vikings team that’s almost as impotent offensively, but the Raiders likely would have won by three scores with any semblance of competent QB play.

Which makes now, with four games remaining and the Raiders (5-8) still harboring faint playoff hopes, a fine time to check in on Las Vegas’ QB quandary going forward.

But any question about the most important position in team sports only begets more queries when it comes to the Raiders and sets in motion a pseudo choose-your-own-adventure scenario.

RAIDERS INTERIM COACH Antonio Pierce has referred to O’Connell as his “BFF,” and riding with him to the fateful end against the Vikings, despite the lack of offensive spark coming off the bye week, showed an uncanny loyalty. Even as the Vikings, in a similar offensive funk, dared to swap QBs in the fourth quarter. Their replacement, Nick Mullens, gave Minnesota enough juice to kick a field goal to win the lowest-scoring indoor game in NFL history, an outcome Raiders All-Pro receiver Davante Adams called “embarrassing.”

“We knew what [we were going to] get when we put Aidan at quarterback,” Pierce said. “It was going to be some ups and downs, and this was not one of our better performances.”

He’s right … to a degree.

Because after O’Connell put up the second-best QBR (88.6) in the NFL in Week 12 in a loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, he came off a bye week to post a QBR of 16.8 against the Vikings. His QBRs have ranged from the sublime (82.7 against the New York Giants in Week 9) to the ridiculous — 8.1 against the Chargers and 20.9 against the Miami Dolphins in Weeks 4 and 11, respectively.

“I have confidence in myself to execute and do my job properly,” O’Connell said after completing 21 of 32 passes for 171 yards and a game-sealing interception against the Vikings.

On the season, he has completed 63.8% of his passes for 1,365 yards, four touchdown passes and seven interceptions in seven games, six of them starts. The Raiders are 2-4 in his starts compared to 3-3 under veteran Jimmy Garoppolo and 0-1 with 38-year-old vet Brian Hoyer.

Still, O’Connell had some high-powered supporters in the locker room before the loss to the Vikings.

“I just want to see him go out there and play,” All-Pro running back Josh Jacobs said. “Don’t think too much. Just go out there and sling it. … You don’t really got too much to lose. Just go out there and have fun, show what you can do.”

Adams concurred.

“Just trust himself and do what he’s been doing and do the things when he had a great rhythm in the preseason,” Adams said. “Just kind of remind himself of what he can do and just keep building. It’s no pressure from any of us and we love him and we’re supporting him through every step of the way. I just want him to be him and be comfortable out there.”

Against the Vikings, though, O’Connell looked anything but comfortable, and it cost the Raiders. Enough to seemingly answer those tough questions about the most important position in team sports, right?

“I haven’t done it good enough, so I’ve got to be better at doing that,” O’Connell allowed. “But I still have full confidence in myself to do this. I’m learning every week what it takes and working extremely hard to try to put a good product on the field. I’m not doing it right now, so I have to do better.”

But for how long?