Jakobi Meyers Sends Strong Message to Antonio Pierce as Possible Firing Looms

A long season for the Las Vegas Raiders has finally come to an end. Following a 34-20 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 18, the team finishes with a 4-13 record and will pick No. 6 in the 2025 NFL Draft.

Head coach Antonio Pierce impressed fans with how he was able to turn the team around when he took over the job after Josh McDaniels was fired last season. That magic didn’t carry over to 2024 as the Raiders consistently seemed overmatched. Three of their four wins came against teams with five or fewer wins.

Though he’s only had one season under his belt, Pierce is on the hot seat and could be fired. The Raiders players rallied around the coach last season and pushed owner Mark Davis to give him the full-time job. Even though this season when far worse for Pierce than last year, wide receiver Jakobi Meyers is among the players who are still supporting the coach.

“Shout out to AP because he kept the guys motivated, even when you’re losing so many in a row,” Meyers said after the game, per ESPN’s Paul Gutierrez. “That’s hard as a professional. That’s hard as a competitor, in general. AP just did a great job in keeping us going.”

Brock Bowers Stands by Pierce

Rookie tight end Brock Bowers wasn’t around for the Raiders’ run under Pierce last season. However, the coach certainly left an impression on him this year.

Bowers was honest about the fact that Pierce could lose his job but he was personally a big fan of the coach.

“I really liked AP as a coach,” Bowers said, per Gutierrez. “We’ll see what happens. I know decisions are made and it’s up to certain people and not us. So I don’t have any control over that. But I really liked playing for him and I thought he was a great coach.”

Aidan O’Connell Talks Pierce

One player who owes Pierce a lot is quarterback Aidan O’Connell. He was the one who made the decision to bench Jimmy Garoppolo last season in favor of O’Connell. The quarterback has been a big supporter of Pierce and thought he did a good job this season considering all the hardship the Raiders had to deal with.

“He did a great job of that. Tried to speak to the guys that wanted to continue to fight … guys continued to show up to work and do the right things and just tried to chip away,” O’Connell said in his postgame media availability.

It’s clear that Pierce still has support in the locker room. That’s not something every coach in the NFL can say, especially on bad teams. That may be worth something to Davis but the Raiders are clearly at a coaching disadvantage in the AFC West.

Davis needs to believe that Pierce can grow enough to be able to compete with coaches like Jim Harbaugh, Sean Payton and Andy Reid. He went 0-6 against those coaches this season so that has to be concerning to Davis. Getting blown out at home against the Chargers in Week 18 isn’t going to help Pierce. Had he at least kept the game competitive, that may have helped his chances.