Antonio Pierce staked his reputation on CB Jack Jones and convinced Raiders brass to sign him
With Josh McDaniels in charge, the Raiders had a swagger problem. They got plenty of it when Antonio Pierce took over as head coach. But he needed all the players on board with that. He had a few who were created their own including Maxx Crosby and Robert Spillane, and was looking for more.
That’s when Jack Jones hit the waiver wire. Pierce had coached Jones in high school and in college. Jones had become known for having some off field issues including getting caught with a firearm in the airport of all places.
So, when he was cut by the Patriots late last season, many teams would shy away from him. But not Pierce. he wanted Jones on his team right away.
Here he talks about how Raiders GM Champ Kelly and owner Mark Davis were hesitant to add Jones, but Pierce staked his reputation on his former player.
“As soon as [Jack Jones] hit that wire, and I saw it come across, I ran right upstairs to our interim GM Champ Kelly and said ‘Champ, he can help us,” said Pierce. “He said ‘Oh, AP, I don’t know, he got a lot of baggage.’ I go ‘I know, trust me, I’ve been there for all of them.’ Then I went to Mark Davis ‘I don’t know, AP, ahh. Right now you want to do that?'”
Pierce said he wouldn’t let it go and soon he was insisting the team make this happen. “I said, ‘you know what, I believe in him so much, if we eff this up, get rid of both of us at the end of the season. Because I know what I’m getting with Jack Jones.”
Jones has a coach in Pierce who believes in him. Something we all need at one point or another. Or perhaps more than one point. And Jones, at least over the final seven weeks of the season, justified his coach’s belief in him.
By Week 14, Pierce had had it with Marcus Peters dogging it and giving poor effort on tackling and he yanked him in favor of Jones. And Jones immediately paid dividends with a pick six and another one the following week.
He fit right in with the energy Pierce was trying to get from his group. Or as Pierce put it “Our swag level went out the roof when we put him in our secondary.”
As if now, Jones is the favorite to be the outside starter entering his third season. And Pierce enters his first season as the full time head coach. The gambit paid off for both of them.
Some people think it looks more like a giant Roomba vacuum cleaner, though.
Allegiant Stadium, the host of the 2024 Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers, is a very beautiful place.
Thanks to Raiders owner Mark Davis, the stadium also happens to have a nickname inspired by the Star Wars film series. That is because the first time Davis welcomed the players to the stadium back in 2020, he referred to it as the Death Star. Via ESPN, he said:
“Welcome to the Death Star, where our opponents’ dreams come to die.”
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ESPN’s Paul Gutierrez said that he told Davis that the Death Star was blown up multiple times throughout the Star Wars series. But that didn’t matter at all to Davis, who still thinks the $1.9 billion stadium bared a resemblance to the Death Star due to its sleek black and grey facade.
Ethan Miller – Getty Images
Despite the unfortunate fate of the Death Star in the Star Wars movies, this nickname is an identity that the team has embraced. During NFL games as recently as this season, the video board at the stadium has read “Welcome to the Death Star” with players holding light sabers.
Lucasfilms
Jon Gruden, who was the head coach of the Raiders (for the second time) from 2018 until 2021, said that it was a “cool name” for the stadium and that he did not “give a damn” about Star Wars.
#Raiders owner Mark Davis told a reporter that the #Chiefs ‘earned’ the right to occupy Allegiant Stadium during Super Bowl LVIII.
The Kansas City Chiefs’ bitter rivalry with the Las Vegas Raiders took a strange turn this week as the defending Super Bowl champions prepared to defend their title against the San Francisco 49ers in Sin City.
As the home team for Super Bowl LVIII, the Chiefs took over Raiders facilities at Allegiant Stadium in a move that left many of Las Vegas’ fans displeased.
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But Raiders owner Mark Davis ceded control of his team’s space with surprising grace during Super Bowl opening night on Monday. When a reporter asked Davis if it was awkward to hand the keys to Allegiant Stadium over to Kansas City, his response was surprisingly respectful.
“As I tell everyone, the Chiefs and the 49ers are my two favorite teams, other than the Raiders,” Davis told Ladd. “Hey, listen, they earned it, and that’s why they’re here.”
While tensions between the AFC West foes may have cooled temporarily, the Raiders and fans in Las Vegas will be relieved when Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs’ stars vacate the premises after Super Bowl LVIII.
The Raiders interviewed former Saints co-defensive coordinator Kris Richard for their open head coach job:
Here’s a name we hadn’t heard from in a while: Kris Richard. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports that the Las Vegas Raiders interviewed the former New Orleans Saints co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach for their head coach opening on Tuesday. Richard was out of the NFL in 2023 after parting ways with the Saints last offseason.
And he wasn’t the only candidate to discuss the opportunity with the Raiders. Buffalo Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier also interviewed for the opening, but all signs point to owner Mark Davis going with interim head coach Antonio Pierce. So while these interviews were conducted to satisfy the Rooney Rule by considering external minority candidates, it’s possible either Richard or Frazier could still end up on staff.
Richard has interviewed for several head coach openings over the years after successful runs with the Seattle Seahawks, Dallas Cowboys, and the Saints as a defensive play caller and position coach. We’ll see if anything materializes on this front in the days ahead.
Mark Davis must learn from Antonio Pierce experience. Raiders next head coach must raise up and empower his players.
If we’ve learned nothing else from this season for the Raiders, it’s just how important a head coach is to the equation in terms of the on field production. Going straight from Josh McDaniels to Antonio Pierce mid-season offered a perfect sample of this. As we saw this team go from bumbling to inspired in an instant.
With the same talent on the field — aside from the switch at QB from Jimmy Garoppolo to Aidan O’Connell — the Raiders offense went from failing to crack 20 points while giving up 23.4 points per game to four times scoring at least 20 while giving up a league-best 16.25 points per game.
The secret was Antonio Pierce’s genuine personality. It isn’t smoke an mirrors, it’s just about getting his players to believe in themselves and play their hearts out every game.
Pierce is a former player whose players respond to him. He isn’t just a coach to them, he’s a teammate. And most importantly, he empowers them to bring each other up because he knows that it doesn’t matter where the message comes from, just that it’s delivered.
The one player, obviously, who has earned the most respect from his teammates to rally them is Maxx Crosby, who was seen on the sideline late in the Sunday’s loss to the Colts pumping up the Raiders defensive players.
“I love it. I’ve always loved to see the players take control, especially on game day. When they’re between the white lines, they’re in control,” Pierce said. “Obviously, as coaches we’re giving them information that they need to either fix a play or continue to do better. And when there’s a problem or you feel a certain way, as a captain and as a leader, and a face of this organization, it was a proud moment for me to see. Because I was talking to Spil [Robert Spillane] and I was wondering why I was getting pulled away. He told me, ‘Get the eff away.’ I didn’t know what was going on, I thought I did something wrong, but he gathered the troops, and they had their conversation which is really good to see. You like to see that amongst your whole team, offense, defense, special teams, but obviously from a guy like Maxx who’s young and obviously he’s going to be a really, really good football player, but also a really good leader and a man.”
Crosby has been very vocal in wanting Pierce back as Raiders head coach. We don’t know yet if that will happen, but if Pierce isn’t back, whoever the new head coach is, he must have that same quality the players respond to.
Who might that be? Well, I’m glad you asked because as it happens, the NFLPA polled over 1700 players recently to rate the coordinators they play for. The results are in and among them are a few who have been mentioned as Raiders head coaching candidates.
As the hiring cycle approaches, this is interesting: The NFL Players Association asked over 1,700 players to rate the coordinators they play for on a scale of 1-10.
The top offensive coordinator was that of Frank Smith of the Dolphins. His name should be familiar to Raiders fans because he spent three seasons as the tight ends coach with the Raiders from 2018-20.
Other players to make the top five on offense or defense who have been mentioned as potential candidates for the Raiders include Chargers OC Kellen Moore (fifth), Cowboys DC Dan Quinn (third), and Rams DC Raheem Morris (fifth).
If the next head coach comes in making it all about him, his ego, and his genius, this team will not respond to that. We’ve seen that formula fail with the last three Raiders coaching hires at least.
It’s time for Mark Davis to end that streak and either bring back Pierce or find a coach who has the same uplifting qualities to which they clearly respond.
You know your team is doing an unexpectedly great job when even the owner is in absolute shock at how well his team is doing.
That was the case in Las Vegas on Thursday night as Mark Davis’ Raiders absolutely trounced the Los Angeles Chargers with a 63-7 lead with nearly an entire quarter of football to go.
The Raiders crossed the 60-point threshold on a pick-6 for cornerback Jack Jones on Chargers quarterback Easton Stick.
After the play, the Thursday Night Football broadcast crew cut over to Davis in his box, who could barely believe what he was watching. His reaction is pretty priceless.
I mean, can you blame him? This was a five-win Raiders team absolutely demolishing a division rival with the same record.
We’re not sure if a game like this could actually earn interim coach Antonio Pierce the job in Las Vegas past this season, but it sure doesn’t hurt. Davis’ reaction to this wild game said as much.
Mark Davis would like Antonio Pierce and Champ Kelly to remain Raiders
The Raiders are in a familiar position with an interim coach, little to play for, and an uncertain future.
Las Vegas has an interim general manager, too, in GM Champ Kelly. Raiders interim coach Antonio Pierce won his first two games at the helm but has dropped the last three.
Does Raiders owner Mark Davis think his team looks better after he fired ex-coach Josh McDaniels? Do Pierce and Kelly have a shot at returning next season? Davis told The Athletic’s Tashan Reed that they do, and he’d like them to earn permanent roles.
You’ve said you want to remain open-minded going into this coaching search. What does that look like as you go into the hiring process?
It’s wide open. But it’s tough at the same time because I do have Antonio and Champ in those positions, and I’d like for them to get the job. So, if I start to feel like that’s definitely the way I’m going to go — which I’m not there — then I don’t want to mislead people in the interview process. So, it’s going to be a really interesting dynamic in trying to keep my mind open to the potential hirings.
Davis also told Reed he learns something new about Pierce and Kelly every day. They have an advantage against any competition if they can prove to Davis they have what it takes to make the Raiders winners again.
Davis added that Pierce and Kelly aren’t necessarily a packaged deal and he’s keeping track of other potential coaches and GMs.
I don’t believe you can tie Antonio and Champ at the hip. It’s not both or none. It could be one or the other. I just don’t know. I’m not making a commitment right now. So, in the process, I’m getting a lot of calls from people who have clients who they feel would be great for the job. I’m banking those names, and we’ll see what happens once the season is over.
One can only wonder who is calling Davis on behalf of other candidates. Las Vegas is an attractive coaching destination, especially with a high draft pick in the cards.
But it appears Davis is giving Pierce and Kelly every opportunity to stick around. The players have responded to their leadership thus far, and Davis acknowledged they stepped into a tough situation in the wake of the McDaniels firing.
Pierce and Kelly also have the backing of superstar defensive end Maxx Crosby, who told Davis he wants Pierce and Kelly back in 2024 — though support from Crosby didn’t help the previous Raiders interim coach, Rich Bisacchia.
In any event, Davis said the position is “wide open” but acknowledged the reality of the situation. What happens during the rest of the regular season appears to mean a lot regarding the future of the Raiders.
NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reports that the Saints and Raiders ‘got very close’ on a trade for WR Hunter Renfrow at the NFL trade deadline:
Well that’s a good nugget. The New Orleans Saints didn’t make a move at the NFL trade deadline on Tuesday, but not for lack of trying. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reports that the Saints were working on a deal that would have brought in Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Hunter Renfrow, only for trade talks to fall apart when it got to the finances.
“The only one I thought might happen was Hunter Renfrow going to the Saints. There was just so much contractual stuff that they had to work out. Who was going to pay his salary, didn’t get it done by yesterday. In the end, did not end up happening.”
Renfrow is owed $3.7 million in weekly salary payments for the rest of the 2023 regular season, which the Saints could have barely fit on their books with an estimated $4.6 million in salary cap space per Over The Cap (Spotrac has them with $3.8 million in spending room).
“Explains why they ghosted us,” one source with anonymous team told CBS Sports’ Josina Anderson. “Nobody responded yesterday.”
So Renfrow will remain in Las Vegas and the Saints will stick with their three-man rotation of Chris Olave, Michael Thomas, and Rashid Shaheed, with Lynn Bowden, A.T. Perry, and Keith Kirkwood coming off the bench. At least for now. Renfrow has a $13.7 million salary cap hit next season and he was demoted to a decoy role in McDaniels’ offense. Unless the Raiders suddenly reverse course, he’ll likely be a cap casualty in the spring.
And it feels like a safe bet that the Saints will be interested. Renfrow was Derek Carr’s favorite target for several years on the Raiders and the Saints have been linked to him since March, before they even signed Carr. If Renfrow is ultimately released and becomes a free agent, the Saints could sign him without jeopardizing a future compensatory NFL draft pick. But we’re putting the cart before the horse here. At this point Carr has the same weapons at his disposal he used to play his best game this past Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts. We’ll circle back to this Renfrow scuttlebutt in the spring.
Josh McDaniels is merely the latest failure in the Raiders’ assembly line of them.
You can make the argument the most successful head coach the Raiders — previously of Oakland and now hailing from Las Vegas — have had the past two decades is … Rich Bisaccia.
This is notable because Rich Bisaccia is not a head coach.
Sure, he filled in at the position, but the longtime assistant has spent the bulk of his NFL career coaching special teams. After being promoted to the interim job following Jon Gruden’s 2021 resignation, his 7-5 regular season record led to a .583 win percentage that’s the highest of anyone who donned the headset for the Raiders since 2003. He’s responsible for half the team’s playoff appearances in those 20 years. He lost a Wild Card game by fewer than 14 points, which is the team’s postseason high water mark since Bill Callahan led the team to Super Bowl XXXVII.
This did not lead to greater opportunity. He was shown the door after that brief campaign and took a special teams role with the Green Bay Packers. The Raiders hired Josh McDaniels as his full time replacement. On Halloween night in Nevada — the wee hours of the morning on the East Coast — he was the first coach fired in 2023.
There’s something about this franchise that poisons whomever is calling the shots. For the most part, it’s been poor roster management and uninspired quarterback play. For Jon Gruden it was an inability to evolve with the NFL that went beyond whatever problems he brought — the insensitive language that led to his ousting, for one — off the field. For Jack Del Rio, it was a defensive coach who couldn’t find the escape velocity to blast through the gravity of a perpetually rancid defense.
Dennis Allen? Tom Cable? Hue Jackson? Lane Kiffin? They never had a chance.
This is the curse of the Raiders top job, a vacancy that will never go to the best candidate on the market because that is not what the Raiders do. They perpetually settle for retreads and assistants who haven’t risen above the fray as proven play-callers, yet get a rocket strapped to their back.
McDaniels had an 11-17 record in a season-plus in a previous stint as the Denver Broncos’ head coach before getting fired; he got the call anyway. Gruden had been a media personality for nearly a decade; he got the call anyway. Art Shell had been out of the game for six years; he got the call anyway. All failed in different ways, but failed spectacularly nonetheless.
Maybe that changes in 2024. Maybe Mark Davis, after being lambasted by fans over his latest awful hiring, decides to make a cultural shift. This is unlikely, given the entire existence of the Raiders franchise under the Davis family’s ownership, but not impossible. The thing is; who would want the job?
Even an upper crust candidate would have to deal with two decades of football that rarely scraped the face of mediocrity. Oakland/Las Vegas has ranked among the top 19 teams when it comes to points allowed just once in the past two decades — 2006, when it finished 18th in a two-win campaign. The Raiders have fielded a top 10 scoring offense twice in that span.
The franchise’s drafting is a perpetual blind spot. Since 2003 the team has earned 14 first-team All-Pro honors — one more than the sad-sack Cleveland Browns, the NFL’s standard bearers of sadness. That’s great, but more than half those awards have gone to special teamers and exactly half belong to punters (six for Shane Lechler, one for AJ Cole).
The Raiders’ most recent homegrown defensive All-Pro was Khalil Mack, who the team decided not to extend and instead traded to the Chicago Bears. Their most recent homegrown offensive All-Pro is Josh Jacobs, who the team also decided not to extend and who may be playing out his string in 2023 (albeit in a reduced capacity compared to his breakthrough 2022).
Is this a case of bad coaches failing to develop talent? A front office failing to provide its coaches with a roster capable of contention? Some unholy combination of both?
Either way, the upside of coaching in Las Vegas is wholly dimmed by the organization within. If you’re an upstart candidate interviewing for jobs this winter, what exactly is drawing you to the Raiders over, say, the Los Angeles Chargers or Tampa Bay Buccaneers or, hell, a non-Dan Snyder-owned Washington Commanders team?
That’s why any discussion about 2024’s hottest coaching candidates and rising stars will include an indelible asterisk when it comes to the Raiders’ job. There is a stink that followed this franchise from California to Nevada, and no amount of scrubbing has been able to erase it. Las Vegas isn’t a coaching job, it’s a longform experiment in mediocrity, the answer to a hypothesis that has never been fully thought out and possibly never will.
Josh McDaniels never had a chance, not that he would have been able to do anything with it if he had. The next man up will inherit Davante Adams, Maxx Crosby and a solid offensive line. He’ll also get Mark Davis, the ghost of Jimmy Garoppolo and a roster that’s soundly below average just about everywhere else.
Breaking: Raiders fire HC Josh McDaniels, GM Dave Ziegler
Trick or Treat! After 10pm Halloween night, Raiders owner Mark Davis officially announced the firing of head coach Josh McDaniels along with General Manager Dave Ziegler.
Davis said in a statement:
“After much thought about what the Raiders need to move forward, I have decided to part ways with Josh and Dave. I want to thank them both for their hard work and wish them and their families nothing but the best.”
McDaniels and Ziegler lasted just 25 games as head coach and General Manager of the Raiders. The team went 9-16 over that span.
The former offensive coordinator McDaniels saw his offense this season fail to break 20 points in any game this season. Monday Night against the Lions, the team scored just seven points and lost despite the defense forcing three turnovers and returning an interception for a touchdown.
Tuesday the trade deadline came and went with the Raiders making no moves to either add talent or add future draft capital. Which is probably for the best considering the issue seemed less to do with the players and more to do with the coaching.
Adam Schefter is reporting that Linebackers coach Antonio Pierce will take over as interim head coach.
Sources; Raiders are planning to name LB coach Antonio Pierce as their interim head coach. pic.twitter.com/ABVVZSCsV8
