With each mounting loss the Raiders get closer to the no. 1 pick in the draft, and the status of their head coach gets a little more in limbo.
Antonio Pierce earned the job last year when he rebounded the team from a disappointing 3-5 start. This year, though, the Raiders are off to an even worse start and the odds aren’t great that Pierce is going to keep his job after the season.
Two weeks ago, The Athletic‘s Vic Tafur speculated that it would take five wins for Pierce to get another year in Las Vegas, and with six games to go, it feels like it will take a miraculous turnaround for the Raiders to finish the season with five wins.
If Pierce ends up being fired after the season, one of the top candidates to replace him is believed to be former Titans head coach Mike Vrabel. A Pro Football Post report last week called Vrabel the favorite to get the Raiders’ job next year and Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter offered his frontrunner for the job on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast this week.
“If they move on from Antonio [Pierce], I believe Mike Vrabel will be the next head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders,” Carpenter said. “I am in no way advocating for moving on from Antonio, at all, and I want to make that clear. But I believe that if they move on from him, it will be Mike Vrabel. He has a great relationship with [Tom] Brady. They are very close.”
“[Vrabel] knows what Tom wants,” Carpenter continued. “He knows what he wants the defense to do, but he already has Patrick Graham. Then the key is going to be when Mike Vrabel has had [the] most success as a coach, it’s when he has an absolute stud offensive coordinator.”
There’s a lot of time between now and the end of the regular season, but it might be a relevant detail that Pierce reportedly wasn’t Brady’ first choice to get the Raiders HC job a year ago.
“Brady was involved in the process that led to the hiring of Pierce, but sources have indicated that Pierce was not Brady’s top choice for the job,” the PFP report indicated last week.
If Pierce is let go, it’s fair to wonder if Brady might choose to start over at the GM position, as well.
The Athletic’s Mike Jones talked about Tom Telesco’s situation in a column this week.
“Telesco is still in his first season with the Raiders, but they are 2-9 and have taken steps backward. That creates scrutiny around Telesco and Antonio Pierce, who was hired as the permanent head coach in January after an encouraging interim stint. Pierce is on the shakiest footing, though he continues to argue that a weak quarterback situation is the biggest thing holding the Raiders back,” Jones said.
“Could Tom Brady, who now has great influence within the organization as a minority owner, want his own guy running the show at coach and GM? If so, that could lead to a short stint for Telesco as well. For now, though, the GM can hang his hat on the fact that he drafted promising starters with his first three selections last spring.”
As of now, it’s hard to pass a lot of blame on Telesco for the disappointing 2024 season.
Telesco didn’t get a quarterback in the 2024 draft, but he did draft a leading candidate for the league’s Offensive Rookie of the Year award in Brock Bowers.
It is believed that Telesco tried hard to move up to the no. 2 pick to get Jayden Daniels, but the Washington Commanders turned down three first-round picks for the no. 2 pick the draft.
x: @raidersbeat
They both should be let go.
1. They’re both responsible for the terrible hire of Gaetze as OC.. you should have paid the Sk8ns OC that $
2. You let Josh Jacobs go and look how he’s doing in GB
3. They did terrible filling the QB need.. O’Connel was terrible last year and they should have moved on
4. Andre James contract was a terrible resigning .. and should have the rookie st C from Day 1
5. Davante Adams was never going to stay and lost out trafing him at peak value
Too many changes too fast + if Sheduer Sanders is supposed to be the favorite QB Pick, , but he is accurate but not athletic. Doesn’t that sound like Aiden O’Connell ??? Wondering if beat writers just need something to write or don’t have enough to do.