Which NFL franchises are the best and worst-run organizations in the league?
According to a survey of 31 NFL agents in The Athletic, the Raiders are not among the best.
“The owner (Mark Davis) frequently makes significant changes,” one anonymous agent told The Athletic‘s Ben Standig. “He put Josh McDaniels and Dave Ziegler in charge and fired them after less than two seasons. Now, the Raiders have an inexperienced coach in Antonio Pierce and a retread GM hire in Tom Telesco. Organizations start at the top, and Davis doesn’t provide stability.”
Another agent criticized the team’s inability to find a franchise quarterback.
“Traditional choices in this category, like Washington and Arizona, have improved or appear headed in a good direction,” the agent said. “Vegas keeps making changes and now finds itself without an apparent quarterback of the future or legitimate starter when it needed one following last season.”
The irony of the complaints against Davis and the Raiders, though, is that they don’t support each other. In fact, they conflict.
There is no doubt the Raiders were moving in a bad direction under Josh McDaniels. The players weren’t responding and it was obvious by mid-October that he was losing the locker room.
A poll taken at the end of last year concluded that McDaniels was the worst coach in the NFL during the 2024 season – and that poll came directly from the players.
There is no reasonable objection to the decision Davis made to fire McDaniels.
The criticism from the second anonymous agent was directed at the Raiders’ quarterback situation, but the quarterback room is what it is because McDaniels couldn’t work with Derek Carr. McDaniels made the decision to move on from Carr without a plan in place to replace him.
The Raiders ended up getting nothing in return for Carr and signed Jimmy Garoppolo to a three-year, $67.5 million contract. If not for Garoppolo’s suspension as a result of violating the NFL’s policy on performance-enhancing substances, the Raiders would be in much worse shape from the standpoint of dead money in 2024.
The Raiders may not have an obvious solution at quarterback, but does anyone believe McDaniels would have the team in a better situation?
Additionally… why the lack of trust in Antonio Pierce?
Pierce went 5-4 as the interim head coach last year and deserves the benefit of the doubt after turning around the team a year ago.
x: @raidersbeat
Par for the course is hating the Raiders. WHy would the media change now?
Congratulations! You guys have become like a grocery store check out rag. We can now put you in the company of The National Enquirer, The Globe and the rest of the tabloids. You really should be embarrassed.
You wrote a balanced article stating the criticism then your disagreement with it, thank you, but I feel the criticism was correct and (hold on to your hat now) I contend Garoppolo is a FAR better QB than either of these two. Wiping the slate clean, what – based on Davante Adams say so? …was an overreaction. I saw SEVERAL passes Adams should have caught by JG – and what team lets a WR make personnel and play call decisions anyway? Ridiculous… Let’s see if the team can produce a winning record and show enough promise. Average teams are often a few players away from being championship teams, but it wasn’t really a “nightmare” last season and blowing it up was an overreaction… Imho, Ty
Lets not get carried away as you turned a decent opinion into ridiculous ramble. There were not many (i can only recall 1 and dont know if from JG) and to make any negative comments towards a receiver who makes consistent outstanding catches as Adams does.
However, I agree with some of what you presented. While McDaniels caused substantial set-backs but ultimately the entire blame falls upon the shoulders of the worst owner in history of NFL.
Nobody can blame Adams for anything and he deserves to play for a team that has a chance to win (hopefully it is us.) I personally feel that when they decided to let Carr go the team should have signed Stidham and allowed him chance to lead team.
Also I believe Jimmy G should have been given opportunity after McDaniels was fired. It is hard to blame McDaniels but then change QB (it says that Jimmy G was somehow complicit with McDaniels in messing things up.) Jimmy G would have produced better than rookie which would have resulted in play-offs for us.