Josh McDaniels claimed to have learned from his first NFL head coaching experience when he was hired by the Las Vegas Raiders in January 2022. However, McDaniels’ record was worse the second time around than it was with the Denver Broncos in 2009 and 2010. Late on Tuesday night, the Raiders announced that general manager Dave Ziegler and McDaniels had been fired by their owner, Mark Davis.
It was later revealed that Mick Lombardi, the offensive coordinator, had also lost his job.
Before the conclusion of his second season, McDaniels was fired by two teams, making him the first non-interim coach in Super Bowl history.
“After much thought about what the Raiders need to move forward, I have decided to part ways with Josh and Dave,” Davis stated in a statement. “I want to thank them both for their hard work and wish them and their families nothing but the best.”
Antonio Pierce, the Raiders’ linebackers coach, will assume temporary coaching duties. Sunday’s home opener versus the Giants will be his first game. From 2005 to 2009, he was a player for New York.
Champ Kelly, assistant general manager for Las Vegas, will take over as interim general manager.
After the season, the team will look for someone to replace McDaniels and Ziegler.
When Davis brought in McDaniels, the veteran offensive coordinator for the Patriots, he had wanted to expand the success of New England westward. Ziegler worked in front office for New England, and between him and his old friends at John Carroll University, they signed players with ties to that club and turned the Raiders into Patriots West.
But the success that Davis so desperately desired never came to Las Vegas, even though he took over a club that advanced to the postseason in 2021 before falling to the Cincinnati Bengals in the wild-card round.
Under McDaniels, the Raiders finished 6-11 in 2022 and have a.360 winning percentage through three games played this season. At Denver, he had an 11-17 record (.393 percentage).
Nevertheless, Davis has defended McDaniels, and it’s unexpected that he was fired at this particular time. In order to address confronting the Giants, McDaniels met with the media early on Tuesday afternoon and was due to hold another news conference on Wednesday morning.
However, McDaniels faced certain obstacles. Although offensive is his area of expertise, the Raiders have not scored at least 20 points in eight of their last nine games going back to the previous campaign. The only game in which Las Vegas came close to that total was a 21-17 victory over the Patriots on October 15 thanks to a safety in the fourth quarter.
The public discontent displayed by several of his players could have been equally detrimental. Particularly since the offseason, standout wide receiver Davante Adams has expressed his reservations about the team’s future. Questioned about what may ignite the offense following the Detroit Lions game on Monday night, running back Josh Jacobs responded, “I don’t know, that ain’t my job.”
After Davis decided not to retain interim coach Rich Bisaccia on a full-time basis after Bisaccia led the team to an unexpected postseason run in 2021, McDaniels was hired.
In their first offseason, McDaniels and Ziegler were active, handing defensive end Chandler Jones a large free-agent contract, exchanging first and second round choices for Adams, and extending the contracts of Hunter Renfrow, Maxx Crosby, Derek Carr, and Darren Waller.
However, McDaniels struggled to win games and was never able to establish the potent attack Davis had hoped for when he hired him, thus those moves had no positive effect on the field.
The Raiders blew a 20-0 halftime lead in his home debut against Arizona, causing the worst collapse in franchise history. The Raiders lost a record-tying five games after taking double-digit leads. After Jeff Saturday was fired as interim coach of the Colts after just one game at the high school level, Las Vegas fell to Indianapolis and then to Baker Mayfield and the Rams two days after Mayfield signed a new contract.
Carr ended up signing a $150 million contract with New Orleans after being benched by McDaniels late in the previous season and being cut in the offseason, leaving the Raiders with nothing in exchange for their top quarterback.
The offense drastically declined after McDaniels started Jimmy Garoppolo, a former student of his in New England, as the starting quarterback. The team became the first since 2009 to score fewer than 20 points offensively in each of the season’s first eight games.
Las Vegas lost 30-12 to Chicago and undrafted rookie former Division II quarterback Tyson Bagent, and then looked totally incompetent in a 26-1 loss to Oakland, making the past two weeks especially depressing.
