HENDERSON, Nev. — The Las Vegas Raiders (2-5) are hosting the Super Bowl champions and a perfect 6-0 Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday at Allegiant Stadium.
The Raiders don’t have time to even think about that.
This team desperately needs something good to happen. Multiple key players are out due to injury, and the team struggles to stay afloat as the weather is the storm.
WR Jakobi Meyers will return, and that is excellent news for the Silver and Black anemic offense, but is it enough?
It is never easy to face your arch-nemesis, but facing them when weathering a storm outside of their attack is simply brutal.
Our latest episode of the Las Vegas Raiders Insider Podcast takes you inside the mindset of the locker room.
You can watch that podcast in its entirety below:
Below is a transcript of Antonio Pierce’s entire press conference on Wednesday:
Q: You guys brought in Desmond Ridder. I'm curious about what your expectations are for a young quarterback that showed some promise last year?
Coach Pierce: "Yeah. I mean, it's a guy who kind of like similar to Aidan [O'Connell], got thrown into the fire early on, played a lot in his second year in the league, then gets traded to the Cardinals. Watching from afar, obviously dealing with the injury with Aidan, just a great opportunity for him come in, learn our system and get him up to speed."
Q: Obviously winning games is the primary goal and objective here. But is there any curiosity about what Desmond Ridder could potentially provide not just this year, but down the road?
Coach Pierce: "I'll be honest, I’ve got my hands full right now with Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes. Worrying about the future is not really what I'm thinking about right now, to be honest. It's really getting him [Desmond Ridder] up to speed. Got in here. He's a bright-eyed kid, very smart, very sharp. Fits in well with the room. I'm excited to see him at practice, see what he can do."
Q: Speaking of Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid, where does Patrick Mahomes stack up against the great quarterbacks you played as a player like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning?
Coach Pierce: "[Number] Three. I mean, I'm sure by the end of it, he'll probably move up. But the two gentlemen you named obviously are Hall of Famers, and one is the greatest of all time. Just the amount of wins, victories and how he did it. But Patrick [Mahomes], and just watching him from afar and seeing him up close and personal, game planning against him is the same countless and sleepless nights that you had as a player, and it's tough because he's a tremendous talent, very competitive. And to be honest, even with what's going on in the season with interceptions, he's still playing his best ball. I mean, there's some stuff that he does that is just not accounted for. I mean, I think credit to them and Andy Reid of how they adjusted to different personnel groupings, the injuries just like us, and they're finding ways to win."
Q: When you look at your offense, what do you need to do to get this thing humming and going?
Coach Pierce: "Yeah, I'll be honest it’s penalties and turnovers. Let's just start there. Penalties, turnovers and execution, right? Detail work, it's easy, right? We go zone right, everybody needs to go to the right. We can't have guys going different directions, right? We’ve got to be clean on that part. Each and every week, I think you go in the game and you feel confident about what the staff is able to do, and I have felt that. And I think at the end of the day, we have to execute as players. We’ve got to call the right plays at the right time. And when all that's going on, if the play breaks down, it's up to the guys on the field to make it right. And that's what this game always comes down to, is players and coaches putting them in positions to make plays."
Q: On that right side, DJ Glaze has gone up against a couple of really elite edge rushers, but now Jackson Powers-Johnson gets to go against his first elite interior lineman in Chris Jones. How do you ramp him up for something like that?
Coach Pierce: "We're not going to leave him on an island, I'm going to tell you that. It'll be Jackson [Powers-Johnson] and the group, Jackson and five other guys. But no, we cannot leave a rookie offensive lineman on Chris Jones, that's not going to happen. Didn't do it last year, don't plan on doing it this year, because he's going against obviously a premier, probably future hall of famer at defensive tackle, and to do that to a rookie, we're not in that business. But excited to see it though, because he's going to battle. It's going to be a slug fest in there."
Q: You spoke last week about Jordan Meredith being ready to play, and obviously had a good game. Any surprise that he played that well and was ready to step in the way he did?
Coach Pierce: "No, I thought last year when he kind of filled in in different roles for us, he always kind of like - you don't really talk about him, which is a good thing, right? Because that's not penalties, he's not making mistakes. But what I love about him is his physicality. He's a blue-collar guy, he's scrappy, he's grimy. You've just got to have one of those guys that just want to get dirty and mix it up. But more importantly, he doesn't make a lot of mistakes. And when you go in there and you throw through two games now with him in there, and you're like you don't mention Jordan [Meredith]'s name. And I think that's really a credit to him and the staff just getting him ready to go, and he's prepared, and he's been in the situation now for two years and he's stepped up."
Q: The Chiefs traded for DeAndre Hopkins today. I know obviously he's been in the league for a long time. He's a known commodity, but we haven't seen him in that offense. How do you prepare for a player like that?
Coach Pierce: "Yeah, I mean you've kind of got to look at it in two folds, right? You know they're going to have some plays for him, get in there and learn the playbook, but to be honest no disrespect to Hop [DeAndre Hopkins], this offense still goes through 87 and [Xavier] Worthy now down the field vertically. So, I'm sure that Andy [Reid], just as he's done in years past when he's made trades for certain players, he finds that role, those six or whatever many plays that he has for that gentleman. You're talking about a proven vet that's been in multiple systems. It's not going to take him a long time to learn it, but just to get him up to speed. I'm not quite sure what we're going to get from here, but we know who the primary focus is."
Q: How close is it for Jakobi Myers to return?
Coach Pierce: "He'll practice today."
Q: Game planning for Kansas City, this is the second year in a row you face them twice in about a month span. How does that impact your preparation?
Coach Pierce:" Well it's good. It's always better the second game. The first game you're looking at it and you're looking at a team that's 6-0 and on a 12-game winning streak. And with all that being said, they're playing really good on defense, really good on special teams. The best part about it, we're very familiar with this team, right? Everything we do in off season and how we game plan, the staff we put together, roster we put together is to beat the Chiefs. I mean, they're the cream of the crop. So we've been studying the entire offseason, and obviously the season goes on, injuries both teams. Now you see the style of play and what they're doing. I mean obviously they've had some tremendous hits. That running back, looking at [Isiah] Pacheco, that's a big hit for them, but they still find a way to run the ball. They do it very creative with either wide receivers or tight ends or whatever they come up with the ways to do it. So, it's always a challenge, it's always fun to look forward to playing Andy Reid."
Q: They also play good defense, and it feels like that's always been under appreciated on the Kansas City Chiefs part, that they actually do play really good defense because Patrick Mahomes draws a lot of attention. What are your thoughts on how they've been able to kind of keep that going?
Coach Pierce: "Ultimate - and I always say, and obviously played for him - but Steve Spagnuolo, what he's able to do. The pressure, this year you see them kind of morphing into something different. They got different personnel groupings, playing not as blitz happy, but they're still aggressive. Still stout at linebacker. They do a good job with their staff just getting their players to do exactly what they’re asked to do. And then when there are plays to be made, they make them, and especially in critical moments in the game, red zone, two-minute, third down, that's probably when they're at their best. That staff is very good, and obviously that's why they've now won back-to-back Super Bowls."
Q: Going into the game on Christmas, you said we're tired of losing, we're tired of losing those dudes. Now you have them at the house. What's the message this week in the locker room?
Coach Pierce: "We're tired of losing the last three weeks. We'll start there, right? We need to get this taste out our mouth. We've had opportunities to win those games, and we let them slip away for one reason or another. And now we got a divisional foe that we know very well. That's all we've done is study. Our teams has talked about it. We're fired up. We're excited. It has nothing to do with last year's game. That team is not even here this year, and I think for us just to go out there and just compete at a high level, and what I asked our team to do is just for four quarters man, strain. I thought last week we did a really good job when adversity hit. There was no flinching, no blinking, and we still had opportunity late in the game to come back and win. And now this game, we’ve got to limit the turnovers, right? It has to be zero, just has to be. And we got to do a good job with penalties, and then obviously doing our job."
Q: Like you said, it's a different team as opposed to last season, but still the Raiders are the last team to beat this team so there's this revenge factor kind of surrounding the game. Do you expect them to come out with a little extra intensity because of that? If that's the case, what do you do to have your guys match it?
Coach Pierce: "Yeah, I mean I expect their best. I mean, you see it each and every week against the teams they go against, starting with Baltimore and Cincinnati and then seeing it in our division and how they're beating teams in our own division. But I don't think they need to be fired up. They know what time it is. We know what time it is. It's time to strap it up and play it. We need to play, and we know they're coming with their best, because they're the best team in football for the last few years. Really, the last seven, eight years, because they've been very competitive and put themselves in position each and every year to win championships."
Q: Gardner Minshew II said after the game It wasn't fair to his teammates when he's got four turnovers. How do you address that with a quarterback without it getting in their head where they play scared? Coach Pierce: "I'll be honest, but to blunt it's sensitive. What do you say? We’ve got to take care of the ball though, but a couple of those opportunities, he suffered a sack fumble; we could just throw the ball away, right? Just play another down, allow us to punt, whatever it may be. And Gardner [Minshew], he's been in the league. When you look at his career, he hasn't had a year like he's having now prior. So, it is kind of unexpected to all of us, I know to him as well. And I think no different than we do each and every week, we talk about turnovers. We talk about protecting the football. It always has to be the Raiders ball, always has to be the Raiders ball. And I think as Gardner goes through this week and our staff as well, it's constantly reminding everybody that we need to do a good job of taking care of the football, because if we allow ourselves to lose the turnover battle this week, it will go opposite for the Raiders."
Q: Kind of crossing sports here a little bit, but you being an LA guy with Fernando Valenzuela, the Dodger pitcher, passing away last night, any thoughts and growing up in Fernando-mania and everything that you saw?
Coach Pierce: "Yeah, no, in the 80’s, they were rolling, kind of like I always talked about with the Raiders, man. And I grew up a Raider-Dodger-Laker, and seeing that happen and not understanding why, condolence to his family and Dodger nation. But obviously what he was able to do, I believe an immigrant, correct? Right. And just taking over the league by storm, Rookie the Year I believe, and just breaking records left and right. I mean there was a different swag about him, he didn't look like all the other pitchers at the time, they were totally different, and obviously he did it his way."
