The Las Vegas Raiders decided to fire head coach Josh McDaniels and general manager Dave Ziegler this week, and owner Mark Davis opened up about why he came to that decision less than two years after hiring the pair from the New England Patriots.
“Unfortunately, I had great hopes for Josh and Dave,” Mark Davis said, via Paul Gutierrez of ESPN. “It just seemed we were going in the wrong direction. So, with the trade deadline, I just felt it was time to make a change, time to make a move.”
The Raiders lost 26-14 on Monday Night Football to the Detroit Lions, and that sealed the fate of Josh McDaniels and Dave Ziegler, as the duo was fired the day following. The Raiders also fell to the Chicago Bears the week before, one of the weakest teams in the league, who were starting undrafted rookie quarterback Tyson Bagent.
The back-to-back losses to the Bears and Raiders seemed to be too much for Davis. The Raiders had reached a 3-3 record after beating the Green Bay Packers and Patriots, but fell to 3-5 with those losses.
Now, the Raiders are turning to Antonio Pierce as interim head coach, and also handing the quarterback duties to Aidan O'Connell, a rookie quarterback the organization had liked coming into the year. It is a change from Jimmy Garoppolo, which was the quarterback McDaniels and Ziegler chose to go with in the offseason after moving on from Derek Carr.
It will be interesting to see how the Raiders fare with Antonio Pierce and Aidan O'Connell starting this week against the New York Giants.
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