NFL
By: Rick O’Donnell
Like it, or not, Antonio Pierce’s time with the Las Vegas Raiders is over. The team announced they were parting ways earlier this week and will be in search of a new head coach for the 2025 season. Despite rallying the Raiders at the end of 2023, Pierce received no breaks in 2024. If this is the way that Las Vegas intends to do business, look for more of the same when it comes to wins and losses.
Let’s start off with what Antonio Pierce inherited. The Raiders hired Jon Gruden to fix their woes back in 2018 and he only got them up to an 8-win season which at the time was breaking even at .500 and he was supposed to be one of the best coaches in recent memory. To be fair, before being released that same season he was let go they did have a 10-7 record and lost in the wild card round with an interim HC. Josh McDaniels takes over and the most the Raiders can muster up is a 6-win season. He proceeded to follow that up with a 3-win season before getting fired and Pierce took over.
What’s more important is how the Raiders failed to capitalize on the season in which they went to the playoffs. The consistent back and forth with Derek Carr at QB and how he wasn’t good enough for them despite the poor leadership of the Raiders. They followed that up with Jimmy Garappolo whose best season was his first in San Francisco. Then Pierce inherited two backup QBs in Gardner Minshew and Aidan O’Connell and was expected to work miracles.
To Pierce’s credit, he did rally the Raiders to finish the season 8-9 which would ultimately lead to his hiring as full-time head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. In that same year, the Raiders let Josh Jacobs walk in free agency. They traded away DeVante Adams to the Jets. Their best back played 14 games and ran for 400 yards. They found a diamond in the rough with Brock Bowers and Jakobi Meyers but didn’t get explosive plays out of their playmakers.
Do you mean to tell me, a head coach who was given a bad team, with no franchise QB, whose star back walked in free agency, whose top WR threat was traded away because he wanted to play with his buddy in NY, that guy was going to be able to turn around a team in 1 full season as a head coach?
That’s a joke of epic proportions and Antonio Pierce deserves better than the Las Vegas Raiders. No, the Raiders knew what they had and kept Pierce on as a fan favorite simply to stall until they found the next guy they wanted to overpay for mediocrity, and Raiders fans will ultimately be disappointed in because they refuse to acknowledge the problem at the front office level.
