Steve Marcus/AP
Las Vegas Raiders interim head coach Antonio Pierce during the second half of an NFL football game against the Los Angeles Chargers, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Steve Marcus)
Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024 | 2 a.m.
A new coach comes in, and as soon as he loses a few games, starts to make (typically subtle) suggestions that his biggest problems were inherited. In the newcomer’s mind, the predecessor is almost always to blame for the biggest shortcomings he’s facing.
It’s a perpetual, vicious cycle seen across the NFL, but perhaps nowhere as frequently as with the Raiders and their league-high 13 coaches over the last 20 years. Most of the coaches in that span have preached accountability, and then hypocritically tried to evade it on a personal level for as long as possible.
Give credit to current Las Vegas interim coach Antonio Pierce for breaking, or at least pausing, the tiresome trend over the second half of this season. The 45-year-old has more reason than most of the coaches that have come before him to lament the situation he was thrust into and cite it as the first example of what’s held him back.
But he’s refused to make any allusion to that, even after the Raiders were eliminated from playoff contention in a loss at the Indianapolis Colts last week that dropped them to a .500 record (4-4) under Pierce’s leadership.
“Everybody who is a straight shooter doesn’t really like the BS,” Raiders receiver Davante Adams said. “You don’t really want anybody who’s going to get in there and blow smoke or whatever it is. You call it how it is and you either love it or hate it…Keep it real about the situation we’re in. That’s who (Pierce) is, and it makes it easy to endorse that type of coach and that type of mindset.”
Adams, the Raiders’ most decorated player, spent most of the year unhappy and warning about how the team’s offensive inconsistency could ultimately sink the season. His premonition has ultimately been realized ahead of Sunday’s regular-season finale against the Denver Broncos scheduled for 1:25 p.m. at Allegiant Stadium but he holds no animosity towards Pierce for not better heeding his words.
That’s because Adams is smart enough to know that the anemic offense is not Pierce’s mess.
It’s difficult to totally separate the head coach from the product on the field especially in an instances like a 3-0 loss to the Minnesota Vikings and a 20-13 defeat to the Miami Dolphins. The former was embarrassing as the lowest-scoring indoor game in NFL history and the latter felt like a what-could-have-been moment because of a puzzling lack of urgency to score points.
But the common denominator in all the losses has been a deficiency at the NFL’s most important position. The Raiders’ fate was all but sealed coming into the season by the way since-fired coach Josh McDaniels and general manager Dave Ziegler completely bungled the quarterback situation.
Extending a veteran they were unsure about, former quarterback Derek Carr, before benching and releasing him less than a year later was bad enough but that only multiplied the impact of the mistakes that followed. Zeroing in on Jimmy Garoppolo as Carr’s replacement in free agency and stubbornly sticking with him despite a failed physical clinched that this season wasn’t going to be a pretty one on offense.
Rookie Aidan O’Connell has done the best he can since Garoppolo was benched and probably overperformed his fourth-round draft slot out of Purdue University in the process, but his flaws are evident. O’Connell looked overwhelmed in a Christmas Day win over the Chiefs where the Raiders didn’t complete a single pass outside of one early possession.
He finished the Colts’ game relatively strong by leaning on Adams, but his lack of mobility and poise was the biggest cause of the Raiders failing to convert on a series of third-downs from short yardage. Indianapolis took a double-digit lead early in the game during a stretch of four Raiders’ offensive possessions where they had more punts (four) than first downs (three).
Pierce wasn’t left with much to work with on offense upon McDaniels’ exit, but hasn’t done all that poor of a job picking up the pieces by the numbers.
The Raiders were 31st in the league by offensive DVOA — an efficiency-based metric — in eight games with McDaniels, a supposed offensive wiz with his handpicked quarterback, this season. They’ve moved up to 28th under Pierce despite being forced to employ an overmatched rookie quarterback, a first-time playcaller in interim offensive coordinator Bo Hardegree and playing without last year’s NFL rushing leader Josh Jacobs for three straight games.
Don’t like the advanced statistics? The Raiders have improved by traditional measures too, averaging 4.6 yards per play under McDaniels to 5 yards per play under Pierce.
That’s still not nearly good enough but it shouldn’t go down as a knock against Pierce given the circumstances.
Pierce has been proactive trying to find solutions too. Many Raiders credited their one great offensive performance, a record-setting 63-21 win over the Chargers, in part to Hardegree moving from the sidelines to the coaching box to call plays.
That change was Pierce’s decision. He also had to sign off on the plan to move second-year player Thayer Munford to left tackle with the prolonged injury absence of the offensive line’s leader and best blocker, Kolton Miller.
Munford thrived at the most important position on the line and now looks like a surefire building block going forward.
But Pierce should be most judged on defense given his background as a former Super Bowl-winning linebacker into a defensive assistant, and that’s where the Raiders have really taken off.
They showed signs of improvement early in the season but sat 24th in defensive DVOA at the time of McDaniels’ firing. They’re now 11th, and got as high as eighth after the victory against the Chiefs where they scored two defensive touchdowns.
“My résumé is on the grass,” Pierce said. “What do you want? I can put up a fancy presentation. I’ve seen that before. I can put up stats, I can put up my resume, but the best thing that happened for me was an opportunity…The worst day I was going to be a head coach was my first day. Each day, it’s my job and I really take pride in growing to get better.”
Raiders owner Mark Davis is in a tough position with his upcoming search for the full-time coaching job. Yes, there will be a search regardless of how he feels about Pierce.
Despite some reports and suggestions to the contrary, Davis can’t simply pull the interim tag off Pierce and name him the permanent coach. He must first fulfill NFL hiring requirements including interviewing at least two external minority candidates.
Maybe some of them will have better pitches than Pierce and sway Davis and his advisors. Pierce’s résumé isn’t peerless after all.
His in-game decision-making has left much to be desired at points. He’s the first to admit he’s not schematically brilliant on either side of the ball unlike the recent trend of most NFL coaches specializing in one or the other.
Pierce has also changed the Raiders’ culture to be predominantly player-run, and Davis will have to decide whether that’s in the best long-term interest of the franchise.
But the top reason his first half-season didn’t pan out with a playoff berth is the lack of offense and consistently competent quarterback play, and that shouldn’t be held against him.
Pierce will need to formulate his own plan of how to fix the unit long-term and present it to Davis. With the way he’s conducted himself over the second half of the season, he’s likely to at least stand by it and not waffle like many do in his position.
Pierce has lived up to words in his brief time at the helm of the Raiders, and it’s almost time to find out if that’s enough for him to get the chance to keep going.
“Having AP here would be a big deal for this organization,” Adams sad. “He kind of embodies what it means to be a Raider and that mentality, that swag, and all the things that he endorses are the things that I believe in. So, it’s easy for a guy like me, especially having dealt with him a little bit this year now and gotten to know him and see his evolution in front of the team and all those things. I’m definitely rooting for him.”
Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or
