Antonio pierce, the new las vegas raiders’ head coach, was given a direct slap in the face to the previous regime led by former new england patriots offensive coordinator josh mcdaniels. Pierce’s appointment by owner mark davis is a sign that the raiders are rejecting bill belichick and the “patriot way,” according to mike Garafolo of the NFL network. pierce will use Tom coughlin, the former head coach with the new york giants, as a consultant to help the raiders find their next coaching staff. Former patriots were all around the team before and during the 2023 season, for reasons of continuity.
Tom Brady wanted to include a minority in the team. In free agency last year, mcdaniels signed jimmy Garoppolo and Jakobi Meyers. Mcdaniels’ raiders experiment with him crashed and burned on nov. 1 when he was fired. Days before McDaniels was sacked, the team met with McDaniels to discuss his coaching style.
Pierce defended mcdaniels and the coaching staff in the players’ meeting, according to jay glazer of fox sports, by referring to the giants’ victory over the patriots in super bowl xlii. Pierce’s remark on the giants offended mcdaniels.
Glazer’s words were quoted in the new york post, “he brought up the old giants team that defeated the new england patriots, josh mcdaniels’ team, in the 2007 season,” glazer said. “no matter who we played,” he said, “we thought we could beat them.” We had a game plan in place for beating them. We used to believe that, but it isn’t true. “we have to believe that at the raiders, we can beat anyone.” glazer said in his address, “everyone thinks they’re great except for josh mcdaniels.” glazer said the remarks were offensive to the then-head coach, who took pierce aside to address them. Glazer continued, “josh mcdaniels comes over to him and says, ‘don’t ever talk about the patriots like that.” “and then you really saw how divided that building was.” Mark davis was up for it, and i think mark davis looked at it and said, ‘i’m gonna pick the one who believes we can win every single week.'”
The las vegas raiders reject the ‘patriot way’ davis stayed with the giants’ approach when he handed over the permanent head coaching position to pierce on friday. Since belichick left the raiders this month, the raiders had a chance to sign him and continue the “patriot way” for at least the 2024 season.
Davis decided to go with pierce after seeing the essence of coughlin’s squad that beat belichick. The raiders will have a solid foundation on which to build for a long time, thanks to pierce’s choice of coughlin’s counsel.
