The Las Vegas Raiders players report back to work on Tuesday morning. It’s a clean start — a “reset,” in Antonio Pierce’s words — because it has to be. His team is 2-7, having lost five games in a row, and he gave them a week off from practice for mental and physical health.
Pierce fired three assistant coaches, including offensive coordinator Luke Getsy, last week because he is unhappy with a 29th-ranked offense that leads the NFL with 19 turnovers. And also because he is starting to feel some pressure.
Pierce took over as interim coach last Halloween and the team won four of its final five games after a 3-5 start. A 20-14 win in Arrowhead Stadium over the Kansas City Chiefs on Christmas — a team that hasn’t lost since — pretty much got him the full-time job, and testimonials from Josh Jacobs and Davante Adams and a passive trade threat from Maxx Crosby didn’t hurt either. (Jacobs and Adams are both gone now, of course.) This season went off the rails quickly, from injuries on defense to an offense that couldn’t run the ball or throw it to guys in the same colored jerseys. Adams asked for a trade on a Victory Monday, of all days, and the Raiders haven’t won a game since.
But Pierce’s confidence is not shaken. That swagger that so many fickle Raiders fans were excited about months ago, only to roll their eyes at now, is still there.
“I’m confident in my ability to lead this team, to get them going,” Pierce said last week. “I think we fight. I think our effort is there. Our execution is poor at times. The opportunities that we have, we let them slip through our hands, and we’ve got to stop doing it.”
The quarterback play has been terrible, and the Raiders are expected to make the change to Desmond Ridder after Gardner Minshew II was benched for a third time this season. Every team in the NFL has to deal with injuries, and the Raiders are no different. They lost three of their best defensive starters and were down to their final five healthy offensive lineman in the loss to the Cincinnati Bengals nine days ago. (I was starting to stretch in the press box.)
It’s too early to play the injury card and, sorry fans, Pierce has no interest in losing games, or tanking, for a higher draft pick. Not when there is no guarantee that he’ll be around to enjoy the new, shiny quarterback.
“I don’t use the excuse we’re playing with a young roster,” Pierce said. “I actually look at that as an advantage for us, right? Because I got a guy that can mold, he’s a sponge, and I can feed him what I want him to be and want him to do and what I want him to look like.”
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Pierce’s message to his team hasn’t changed during the losing streak.
They were within striking distance late in four of those losses and beat themselves with turnovers and penalties.
And, more importantly, the Raiders’ culture has been set and is ingrained. And that’s something owner Mark Davis and general manager Tom Telesco will be looking at.
“We can’t get comfortable with losing,” Pierce said before the Week 8 loss to the Chiefs. “These guys are in here working and doing everything they need to do to get themselves ready to play. … When we make up our mind as a staff and as players that the ball is the most important thing to us, we’ll be a winning football team. But the culture is already set. Those guys in the locker room understand it. They block out the outside noise.”
The outside is listening in, as there was a report by CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones of an “uncomfortable meeting” last Monday where players voiced some complaints. This followed another contentious meeting after a Week 3 loss to the Carolina Panthers where Pierce said some players had made “business decisions” during the loss.
The thing, though, is that this Raiders culture Pierce hopes he has built is based on open communication. Players are encouraged to speak up and Pierce speaks his mind as well. He realized he went too far with the “business decisions” comment and later walked it back.
At the meeting last Monday, players told The Athletic that one of them had suggested there could be less downtime on practice days and Pierce thanked him for the feedback.
Communication and hard work are necessary and expected, as Pierce hopes the truth will set this team free from its losing streak. (And from years, make that decades, of losing, let’s not forget.)
“I don’t sugarcoat nothing,” Pierce said way back in training camp. “I mean, it is what is. It comes out how it comes out. … They get the point, but they also know I’m going to love them up like no other. I could be their biggest cheerleader; I could be their biggest critic.”
He had the team and staff do several team-bonding outings and exercises during training camp — and coaches and players thought the team was extremely close heading into the season.
Pierce hopes the team leans into that over the final eight games, starting Sunday in Miami, even if they had to say goodbye to three coaches.
“We’ve got to get better, and we can’t use no excuses for injuries or this, or that, or the quarterback, OC or head coach,” Pierce said last Monday. “We are all involved in this as an organization, as staff and players. We got to stick together and not really get into the outside noise and let everybody pick us apart.
“That’s what the whole offseason is about, because I knew at some point we’ll get into this dark moment, and it’s a dark moment for us right now. We’ve got to get out.”
Pierce joked last week that he checked his phone on Halloween night to make sure that he still had a job. I laughed while others may have cringed, but it shows where the coach’s mind is at regarding his future.
“The second half, we need to play our best football,” Pierce said. “And it’s kind of ironic that I took over around this time last year and we played better football at the end of the season. I’ve got to find a way to get that back into these guys, starting with our staff and our players. Make sure that we’re energized, we’re focused, and we’re going to do whatever it takes to get a win in Miami.”
(Top photo: Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
