When Antonio Piece was fired by the Raiders on January 7, it was the first domino to fall in what has been a dramatic start to the offseason – even by Raider standards.
There were rumors that Pierce might have done enough to keep his job, but with Tom Brady now in the mix in Las Vegas, there might have been a little less patience in the building for the first-year head coach.
There hasn’t been a lot reported on how the Raiders reached the decision to fire Pierce, but Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter dropped a little nugget on the matter this week.
According to Carpenter, there were concerns within the organization around the level of discipline among players compared to a year ago.
“They felt like Antonio Pierce was hurt at times by not having experience, even at the coordinator level in the NFL. He had some very wise and good counsel around him, so it was baffling to some about decisions that were made. Again, that’s not piling on Antonio Pierce at all. That’s just the reality of the mood,” Carpenter said on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast this week.
“That there was a lot of people, both locker room and outside of the locker room, that felt like the discipline and the things that got him the job in 2023 maybe were not his present in 2024 and felt that hurt him.”
There were mistakes made by Pierce and the coaching staff, but there were also factors outside of his control working against the Raiders this year.
Davante Adams quit on the team in October and a barrage of injuries transformed the roster by the end the year.
To the credit of everyone involved, the players played hard for Pierce, but there was enough decline in other areas for Brady and Mark Davis to question the direction the team was headed under Pierce.
Pierce ended his head coaching tenure in Las Vegas with a 9-17 record, and that was a game worse in the loss column than his predecessor, Josh McDaniels (9-16).
Now for the fourth time since 2021, the Raiders are hitting the reset button at head coach and the precedent has been set for Pete Carroll.
Nine wins and 16 or more losses will be the mark to avoid.
