Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis cleaned house heading into Week 9, firing head coach Josh McDaniels and general manager Dave Ziegler.
Davis replaced McDaniels with Antonio Pierce, who had been the club’s linebackers coach prior to McDaniels’ dismissal.
Davis likes the fact that Pierce has great leadership qualities, which marks a change from what he previously valued in head-coaching candidates, according to ESPN’s Paul Gutierrez.
“[Mark Davis] doesn’t want [Pierce] to necessarily coach guys up,” Guterriez said this week on the Bleav in Raiders podcast. “He wants him to lead guys. There’s a very fine line there. There’s a very fine difference.”
Gutierrez then went on to say that Davis didn’t hir former Raiders special teams coordinator and assistant head coach Rich Bisaccia as head coach because he didn’t think he was enough of a tactician.
“To me, it was interesting because that’s what kept Rich Bisaccia from getting the job on a full-time basis two years ago because he was more of a leader than a tactician,” Gutierrez explained. “At the time, that’s what Mark Davis wanted. He wanted the X’s and O’s guy and he was sold on that. Now he’s kind of going back.”
Bisaccia moved on to the Green Bay Packers in 2022, where he served as special teams coordinator in his first season. He now fills both roles he previously did with Las Vegas: that of special teams coordinator and assistant head coach.
Hondo Carpenter of Sports Illustrated says that Davis regrets not hiring Bisaccia when he had the chance.
“I think Mark [Davis] has regretted not hiring Rich. I’m not guessing there. I have reason to believe that,” Hondo said on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast this week. “The problem was that Mark wanted to move on from [Mike] Mayock, and Mayock was so ‘We have got to hire Rich, we have got to hire Rich’ that he was like ‘Nope. Clean everybody out.’”
The Raiders won their first game under Pierce in blowout fashion, hammering the New York Giants 30-6 last weekend. They are now 4-5 and will battle the New York Jets on Sunday.
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