Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz, NFL writer Frank Schwab and senior NFL reporter Jori Epstein break down what went wrong during Antonio Pierce’s time as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders that led to his termination. Hear the full conversation on “Inside Coverage” – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
Antonio Pierce deserved to be fired.
And I don’t say that because I root against the man or the coach.
From the outside looking in, Antonio Pierce seems like a great dude.
He seems like the sort of dude you want to hang out with, and I understand why guys wanted to play with him.
But it doesn’t change the fact that when you actually look at the responsibilities, ask yourself, what Did Antonio Pierce actually accomplish to to deserve keeping the job?
Now I hear the argument, uh, seriously, that he had no quarterback and you can’t win without a quarterback.
I understand that.
But look at the other things involved in this conversation.
Who picked the offensive coordinator eventually that ran this team?
Antonio Pierce picked Luke Getz.
Now you’ve got a rookie coach that has picked a bad offensive coordinator, which is not gonna help the development.
At the end of the season, he sits up and says he sort of trusted his gut at the quarterback position.
Well, look across the board at game management situations that over and over weren’t good enough.
Look at the number of times that Antonio Pierce has sat in a microphone and ask yourself, why does he constantly say the wrong things.
Look at the fact that they needed a players only meeting only 3 weeks into the season to talk about some of the Issues in the locker room for a CEO coach that’s supposed to create the right locker room.
We look at all of these things that went wrong, and I think what happens is a lot of times we look from the outside looking in and we just simply say, well, another black coach was only given one chance in the league, one year in the league, it’s not fair.
I understand that that is often a correct narrative.
In this situation, I would beg everybody to look at the actual work of Antonio Pierce and find me what he did so well that you think that it’s worth.
Giving him another year in this process.
Ultimately, the only way the Raiders can compete long term is to find a coach that can compete with 3 Hall of Fame caliber football coaches that are in their division and a quarterback that can compete with 3 of the better quarterbacks in the NFL.
Antonio Pierce did nothing in his 1 year to show that he’s deserving of that.
And just like we accept the fact that Aiden O’Connell was pretty good sometimes, but is not the future, it’s OK to also say, hey, our coach was pretty good sometimes, but is not the future.
The faster you move on from a mistake when you know you don’t have the right person in the building, the better.
And yes, it frustrates me to be going through yet another coaching hire.
And no, I have no faith that they’re going to get it right, but at some point, you have to look at it and say, I have no faith that they got it right the last time and change for the sake of change isn’t a great thing, but change when you know you need to make it, even if it means you have to go back to square one, you gotta do it.