Antonio Pierce's impact on the Las Vegas Raiders can easily be quantified by looking at his win-loss record as the Raiders interim head coach. Under Pierce, the Raiders are 4-3 and still mathematically alive for a playoff berth. In the season and a half prior, under former head coach Josh McDaniels, the Raiders were 9-16. Here we have two men, both in their mid-40's, who have spent essentially their entire adult lives around the game of football. McDaniels had long been considered a coaching prodigy — a young offensive guru who learned the ropes from Bill Belichick, arguably the greatest head coach in the long history of the NFL. Meanwhile, the extent of Antonio Pierce's head coaching experience came at the high school level prior to taking on the interim tag in Las Vegas, but surely, playing in the NFL for a decade would be experience certainly counts for something.
It turns out, we may have drastically underrated how much that experience meant.
Now that's not to say that every former NFL player is qualified to be a head coach, nor am I suggesting that someone with a complete lack of head coaching experience at the pro level is the right guy for any head coaching job. In fact, it's not even so much that Pierce was a former player, but more about the fact that he seemingly knows how to relate to and lead NFL players in such a way that they clearly love playing for him.
In the aftermath of Antonio Pierce's ascension to interim head coach, Raiders owner Mark Davis was asked about his expectations for Pierce. Davis' answer was straight-forward: he expected Pierce “to lead, not necessarily coach. To delegate to the coordinators and other position coaches. Be somebody they could follow.” (h/t Joseph Salvador of Sports Illustrated).
Okay, so if that was truly the job description for Antonio Pierce, isn't it now crystal clear that he's passed that test with flying colors? Aren't we watching the Raiders follow Pierce's lead and start to look like a completely different football team than they were during the first half of the season under Josh McDaniels, who had no connection with his players and garnered no respect in the locker room? The reports from earlier in the season said that McDaniels was “broke” by a contentious team meeting just days before he was fired. I'm sorry, but the coach of the Las Vegas Raiders should not be able to be broken by some critical words coming in his direction by the players he's coaching. That's not what a Raiders coach is supposed to be about.
Antonio Pierce feels more like what the Raiders head coach should be than any other Raiders coach has in my lifetime. If we're looking at the type of individual who should be leading this team — notice I said “leading” and not “coaching” — it should be someone like Pierce. Fearless, hard-working, charismatic, confident. Doesn't Antonio Pierce perfectly embody that? During his tenure, the Raiders have compounded wins with rowdy locker rooms celebrations complete with cigars and swagger. Isn't that what we want out of the silver and black?
“I'm going to keep saying it: As long as it looks right, sounds right and smells right, I'm fine with it. Win, lose or draw,” Antonio Pierce said while addressing the media on Tuesday, per ESPN's Paul Gutierrez. “And I'm going to be me, and [the players] are going to be them. And when this bad boy's over with, hopefully it all works out and we're together for more years to come. And hopefully Mark Davis sees improvement and growth within our team. He sees the style and play that he wants from the Raiders. He sees a fan base that's behind us. He sees a building that loves coming to work and loves being here and people that's covering the team, enjoying covering the team. And at the end of the day, we got to win.”
Will history repeat itself in Las Vegas?
The question now is, will Mark Davis make the same mistake he made two years ago?
Two years ago the Raiders were left to turn to interim head coach Rich Bisaccia, who took over after Jon Gruden resigned as a result of a scandal that related to sexist, homophobic, racist and misogynistic emails written by Gruden became public record. Bisaccia inherited a 3-2 Raiders team that would deal with all sorts of on and off field drama, yet Bisaccia was able to connect with his players, go 7-5 as the interim head coach, and lead the Raiders to their first playoff appearance since 2016.
Stunningly, after the season, Rich Bisaccia wasn't hired as the head coach despite the fact that he was the first interim head coach to lead his team to a postseason berth since 2012. Even if Mark Davis and the Raiders didn't want to give Bisaccia a rich, lengthy contract — as they foolishly did with both Jon Gruden and Josh McDaniels — the fact that he didn't even get an opportunity to run it back with the Raiders in 2022 remains a bewildering decision.
So again, I ask, will Mark Davis make the same mistake he made two years ago?
For the sake of the Raiders, I hope he doesn't. A competitive Raiders team would be great for the NFL on so many levels, and it feels like Antonio Pierce is the man who can “lead” (not “coach”) them to that point. I don't give a damn that Pierce doesn't have the sort of CV that most analysts or front office members deem acceptable, and neither should Mark Davis. Just watch the way this team has played for the last month and a half, and you'll see a group of guys that is playing for their head coach. They are playing for their leader.
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