Tag: Raiders offensive coordinator

Raiders offense seeing signs of progress of late

Even as the Raiders losing streak continues, there are positive signs they could be putting things together on offense under interim OC Scott Turner.

Make no mistake, the Raiders are still one of the worst teams in the league. They are still in the midst of an eight-game losing streak and the offense hasn’t cracked 20 points in a month. But if you are looking for signs of hope, there are signs to be found.

A month ago, the Raiders fired offensive coordinator Luke Getsy and promoted passing game coordinator Scott Turner to interim OC. And things have improved in the three games since he took over.

Total yards have been better in each of the past three games than they had been for any of the games over the final month under Getsy. The passing yards totals have been better than at any point since their losing streak began and have gone over 300 yards in each of the past two games, which hadn’t happened all season coming in. And their 116 yards on the ground in Kansas City last week was their third highest total of the season.

Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce credits Turner for that improvement.

“When I look at all our skill guys and improvement that they’re making these last three games, I think Scott [Turner] has done a good job of really getting everybody involved and that’s even in our running game,” said Pierce. “And that’s a credit to these players, because it hasn’t gone our way for most of the season offensively, and to see the progress that we made over the last two or three weeks is good to see.”

The deep passing game has been the catalyst for the overall improved numbers through the air. And the best example was the 58-yard touchdown from Aidan O’Connell to Tre Tucker last week.

“We’ve been talking about hitting shots for a while now, and I thought the best thing we did was play design,” Pierce said. “Let’s look at that, right? We got him in motion. We got movement between the corner and the nickel, now we’ve got Tre Tucker running full speed on them, something we’ve been really working on in practice.”

Coaching may be where it starts, but you can’t call a pass play like that without a QB who can make that throw. It’s something former starter Gardner Minshew lacked, but that is very much in a staple of current (and former) starter Aidan O’Connell’s game.

“We haven’t thrown the ball down the field, let’s just keep it frank,” Pierce continued. “And Aidan [O’Connell] saw it, and I’m not going to lie he did right in front of me, I just said ball and that bad boy kept running. It was beautiful to see.”

At some point, it may lead to a win. Which, with the Raiders officially eliminated from playoff contention, may not matter much. What you really want to see now is progress and some signs of a good foundation for the future.

Norv Turner conversation with son Scott about joining Raiders staff was so wholesome

Some things are bigger than football. And when Raiders interim OC Scott Turner asked his dad Norv to join him in Las Vegas reminder of that.

Some things are bigger than football. And sometimes, as with Norv Turner joining his son with the Raiders, it can fulfill both the football aspects as well as the life.

When the Raiders fired Luke Getsy as offensive coordinator, Antonio Pierce turned to passing game coordinator Scott Turner to take over as interim OC. To which, Turner had one request — bring my dad onboard.

“AP made the decision that he made and he contacted me and we went through the process and the only thing I really asked for was if we could have my dad come, just for some help,” said Scott of his father Norv. “He was good about that, when AP was a player he played against my dad when he was a coach, so he said he thought it was a good idea and that was pretty much it.”

Norv had coached at the NFL level, either as an offensive coordinator or a head coach for nearly 40 years. But this was about a lot more than his wealth of experience. For both of them, this was the bonds between father and son and grandchildren.

But first, it was about breaking the news to mama Turner that Norv was coming out of retirement.

“He just said don’t tell your mom. He was like ‘I got to find out how I’m going to break it to her.’ Scott said of his dad’s response to being asked to join him in Las Vegas. “She was good. She was like ‘I don’t know why he was so nervous’. I was like ‘Come on, you know why’. He’s living with me. My kids are enjoying it. They don’t see him much, but they will as we get to the end of the week and my mom will be out here in about a week or so.

“I coached with my dad before. He was the coordinator, I was the quarterback coach. So being able to live close to him was great. Now, my kids are older — 10 and 8 — so they’re like super fired up about having Papa around. So, that part of it on a personal note is really cool.”

On a professional note, Norv Turner is yet another former head coach and well-respected mind on this Raiders coaching staff. Joining the likes of Marvin Lewis and Tom Coughlin in senior advisory roles. And being that he’s had a personal interest in the Raiders of late due to his son being on staff, he isn’t coming into it completely fresh.

“Being able to have him see us at practice every day, not just watching us from afar and helping with input is invaluable,” Scott added.

“He watches football constantly. He knows what we’ve done one offense,” Scott said of Norv. “Obviously the verbiage is totally foreign to him, but I can just translate it. He just says what he thinks and I say ‘Oh, we call it this’ or whatever. So, it’s really not that hard.

“And just fundamentals, tidbits for the quarterback, he’s sitting in a lot of the quarterback meetings. Just stuff that you don’t even think of. Again, I can only see so much.

“We have a great coaching staff, those guys do a great job too. It’s just another set of eyes. With the wealth of experience that he has who also, he’s not afraid to tell me what he really thinks obviously, so that part of it is great also.”

So, welcome back to the Silver & Black, Norv. And to spending more time with your son and grandkids. You love to see it.

Antonio Pierce talks what went wrong with Raiders offense, what he’s looking for in new OC

Antonio Pierce had a lot to say about the many issues on the Raiders offense that led to Luke Getsy’s firing and what he wants in the new OC.

After five straight losses leading to a 2-7 record this season, the Raiders have taken drastic action. Sunday night they fired OC Luke Getsy after just nine game with the team and also let go of two other members of the offensive staff.

While as of Monday morning, Antonio Pierce was not ready to name a replacement, he did going into what he thinks went wrong that led to the firing and what he’s looking for in the next offensive play caller.

Let’s start with what went wrong.

“When I look at the last nine weeks, I just look at a bunch of things,” said Pierce. “I’ll just start with turnovers. I don’t care what team you are, who you have at quarterback, who’s your head coach, who’s your OC, you’re not going to win games when you turn the ball over at the rate we’ve been turning the ball over pretty much three times a game. Especially 13 in the last five.

“I think we’ve had enough opportunities to punch the ball in, to give our team an opportunity to win games and we haven’t done that. And that’s really a compilation of everything. That goes from play caller to the play of our players to execution to details to the confidence that we’re playing with.

“A lot of those things factor into it. Some of it is shocking. Because I think when we left training camp we felt good about this group and our team. Obviously we did get hit with injuries, but that’s no excuse because every team in the league is dealing with that as well. But I think offensively it just wasn’t going the way I wanted it to go and it didn’t look the way I wanted it to look.”

It’s honestly strange for Pierce to suggest they felt good about how the offense looked coming out of camp considering he never got what he wanted which was one of the two quarterback to step up and say ‘I’m the guy‘. He himself said he was giving Gardner Minshew the first quarter of the season to keep the job and then benched him after five games.

As to the other issues, yeah, much of that falls on the OC. The run game issues in particular, which were the reasons for the missed opportunities like happened in the loss to the Chiefs last week.

As for what he’s looking for in a new OC.

“Matching the philosophy and the idea of what I preach which is physicality, ability to run the ball, taking shots down the field, protecting the football first and foremost, disciplined up front,” Pierce added.

“We got to do what’s best and gives us the best opportunity to win. Whatever that may be. If it’s throwing the ball 60 times, fine. If it’s running it 60 times, fine. But we got to find a balance and an identity on offense going forward.”

This strikes at the heart of the complaints against Getsy’s approach. How it seemed like his decisions were based too much around trying to do what the defense didn’t expect as opposed to sticking with what worked. In consecutive games this season against the Rams and Chiefs, at the most critical times, he abandoned what was working in favor of what was not and it killed the Raiders chance of punching it in for the score.

So, the moral here seems to be that many of the Raiders issues don’t fall on Getsy and thus it seems unlikely this change is going to miraculously make things better. But enough of it was Getsy that a change needed to be made if this team is at least able to capitalize on their opportunities and not fall flat each time.

Raiders HC Antonio Pierce not ready Monday to name Luke Getsy replacement

Luke Getsy was fired as Raiders offensive coordinator Sunday night. As of Monday morning, Antonio Pierce was not ready to name a new one.

There has been plenty of speculation as to who will take the place of offensive coordinator Luke Getsy, who the Raiders fired Sunday night. But as of Monday morning, Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce was not yet ready to name that person.

“I’ll use the next 24 to 48 hours to sit down with the staff and figure out who’s going to call the offense going forward,” Pierce said in his Monday morning conference call.

The name most mentioned as a potential replacement is pass game coordinator Scott Turner. Turner is the son of former Raiders head coach Norv Turner.

Scott was an OC in Washington for three years from 2020-22 and in Carolina for a season prior to that. So, he’s got some experience calling plays.

Pierce said the decision to fire Getsy was his and his alone. But it sounds like his decision as to who replaces Getsy will be based a lot on the input he receives from his staff. And in the process, he will also need to fill the spots of the OL coach James Cregg and QB coach Rich Scangarello who were also let go.

He will hope to have those positions filled – likely in house — this week while the players are off and before they return to practice after the bye.