How much of an impact did the players’ lobbying for Antonio Pierce have on Mark Davis’s decision to hire Antonio Pierce?
According to Vinny Bonsignore of the Las Vegas Review Journal, not a lot. In fact, Bonsignore said on Monday that the owner’s instinct was to hire Pierce from the day he replaced Josh McDaniels.
Filling in for JT The Brick on Raider Nation Radio on Monday, this was Bonsignore’s account of the owner’s mindset on Pierce going back to November…
“I can assure you that going back to when Antonio Pierce was elevated from linebackers coach to interim head coach back in the first day of November, I talked to Mark Davis and he had this in mind going all the way back to that point. There was an instinct about elevating Antonio Pierce to the interim head coach position and I think those instincts that Mark Davis, and the other decision makers had in that decision felt back then, were validated…
The players’ response to Antonio Pierce, I think validates what those instincts were by Mark Davis a couple of months ago. How Antonio Pierce oversaw this and conducted himself, and injected life and passion and the Raider way into the Raiders locker room. It’s all validation of what Mark Davis felt…
This was by no means an owner that was only and exclusively listening to his players. His players had a voice. He heard that, he listened to it, but this was Mark Davis making the decision that he felt was best for this team. It was a decision that he had in mind going far back to a couple of months ago before any player had said anything about Antonio Pierce.”
In the days prior to Pierce being hired, there seemed to be some anxiety among players (particularly Maxx Crosby) that Pierce wouldn’t get the job, but The Athletic‘s Vic Tafur suggested that narrative was blown out of proportion a bit.
Who knows what really happened behind closed doors in the Raiders’ coaching search, but at least two beat writers covering the team seem to think Davis had a strong leaning toward Pierce well before the decision was announced.
One thing the owner doesn’t appear to have figured out yet is the team’s general manager situation, but it sounds like an announcement could be coming as early as Tuesday.
twitter: @raidersbeat
B.S. once again the “media” are clowns being paid by the team. This “report” is put out there to make all involved feel better about MD. Mark was “reported” to be thinking of bringing back Gruden and also bringing home Jim Harbaugh. Whatever the truth is we all know what it wasn’t. It wasn’t MD knew he would hire AP before the games had been played. My biggest question about AP is who’s going to be the OC? And 2nd is will the defense perform as well as they did the 2nd half of last season or will they be like year 1 of McZiggy and literally lose games that they should win. The same defense that forced a scapegoat in Carr. Time will tell.
you had me up until the Carr comment.
Atleast more people realize now more than ever that what’s his name was a historically bad QB. Saying he was forced to be a scapegoat by the defense is just short bus talk.
Please, please Mark! Get the right GM to help this team move forward & not be stuck yet again!
CK…general manager …Getsy o c …. Justin fields…our future! No nono to telesco the dolts are 36 million over the cap. Why the hell would you even let that turd in the building. Maybe its time to get rid of the 82 year old Redneck on the committee.
Right now, Mark Davis has the opportunity to put together a coaching staff to equal that of John Maddens.
you had me up until the Carr comment.
Atleast more people realize now more than ever that what’s his name was a historically bad QB. Saying he was forced to be a scapegoat by the defense is just short bus talk.
I think Mark Davis made the right call and while I don’t believe he had his mind made up the Pierce was the guy out of the gate. However, I do believe he had good vibes about A.P. from the start. Nobody will accuse Mark of being a genius it is possible he had a good hunch about A.P.