Sin City Raiders

Now that the honeymoon phase is over, it is time for Mark Davis and Raider Nation to take a long, hard look at the looming decision on who will coach their beloved Silver and Black in 2024.

Interim head coach Antonio Pierce had a fun start to his head coaching tenure as the Raiders crushed the New York Giants in one of their most decisive victories in quite some time. Sure, the Giants lost their starting quarterback to injury early in the game, but this was a Raider team that had just gotten embarrassed by an undrafted rookie backup quarterback in Chicago a few weeks earlier. So in that sense, the victory cigars were warranted.

Pierce’s Raiders won their first two with the new coach calling the shots and lost in his third game to a Miami team that is currently atop the AFC. The Raiders went into Miami and had the ball with a chance to tie the game at the end of regulation, but that was ended abruptly by Jalen Ramsey.

Pierce’s Raiders looked much more like what you would expect a team with an interim coach to look like as they lost to the Kansas City Chiefs 31-17; despite having a 14-0 lead in the second quarter.

Looking forward, Pierce’s tryout will continue for five more games in which the Raiders have one of the NFL’s most difficult remaining schedules. Looking further forward, the decision that Mark Davis will make sometime in early-to-mid January is the most important one he will make since, well, his last coaching hire, and we don’t need to revisit that one anymore.

Davis has an opportunity to begin a new regime; which he has done three times in the 12 years since inheriting control of the team from his father, the great Al Davis. From Dennis Allen and Reggie McKenzie, to Jon Gruden and Mike Mayock to Josh McDaniels and Dave Ziegler. It was the latter duo that Mark hired most recently, and he finds himself in a familiar scenario.

Two years ago when Mark Davis hired the McDaniels-Ziegler duo, he chose them over his then-interim coach Rich Bisaccia, who had made himself popular with the players as he coached them to a surprising playoff appearance. There have been whispers that Mark regrets making that call, but it is too easy to play Monday morning quarterback. Davis has to look forwards, not backwards.

There’s no proving that Bisaccia (who I also admire for that 2021 playoff run by the way) would have had long-term success with the Raiders. How do we know that 2021 wasn’t just a thrilling season where the Raiders caught lightning in a bottle? Again, we have to look forwards to 2024.

It would be a mistake for Mark Davis to use the McDaniels-over-Bisaccia decision as a factor when deciding who will lead the Raiders next season. The answer of who is the best candidate depends on the coach, not the scenario, and this is a scenario that the franchise has been through quite a few times before.

Just looking at recent history, Al Davis stuck with then-interim coach Tom Cable in 2009. Although the Raiders had their best seasons in 10 years, they topped at 8-8 and although they came close to a division championship, a Tim Tebow-led Broncos team took that away from us. So, was Cable the right guy in 2009 or should Al have hired someone else? In 2014, Tony Sparano replaced Dennis Allen.. The next offseason, Jack Del Rio came in helped build a playoff team in just two years. Skip ahead to Bisaccia replacing McDaniels and then being replaced by McDaniels. Just because McDaniels was the wrong choice, it doesn’t mean Bisaccia was an assurance of success.

And now, here we are with Antonio Pierce. He is popular among the players and he deserves the benefit of the doubt as he is working with the assistant coaches, roster and playbook that McDaniels put together. But just because Mark Davis whiffed the last time he replaced an interim coach, doesn’t mean that Pierce should be guaranteed of the job.

Al Davis once said, “it isn’t important to be consistent. It’s important to be right” and that is the mindset that his son must have in choosing the next coach of the Silver and Black.