Las Vegas Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels stands on the sidelines during the second half of an NFL football game at Allegiant Stadium Sunday, Jan. 1, 2023.
Friday, Jan. 13, 2023 | 2 a.m.
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Derek Carr used to say he had seen it all during his nine-year tenure with the Raiders. The team has been among the most unstable in the NFL over the past decade, with poor decisions, losses and controversies contributing to a prolonged disappointing stretch for what was once one of the league’s preeminent franchises.
That makes it ironic, however, that as Carr departs this offseason via either trade or release, the Raiders will enter next season in a situation he never encountered: one where the organization’s top two football powers are both in make-or-break mode.
Coach Josh McDaniels and general manager Dave Ziegler cannot afford another season where they guide the Raiders, who rank above average in the NFL in terms of top-level talent, to an underwhelming finish like this year’s 6-11 record.
“We know the goal this year and the standard, and certainly our record — the way we finished this year — isn’t that. So we’re going to do everything we can to make that better and improve it going forward,” McDaniels said this week in a season-ending news conference.
For all Carr experienced as a quarterback with the Raiders, there was always some year-over-year steadiness or security in the structure above him. He entered his rookie season with then-coach Dennis Allen on the hottest seat in the NFL, one that sure enough ended up getting him fired after four games, but general manager Reggie McKenzie was safe.
The former Raiders linebacker ended up serving loyally from 2012 to 2018.
Carr’s second full-time coach with the Raiders, Jack Del Rio, signed an extension going into the 2017 season and was never expected to be fired after one underperforming campaign. The dispatching of Del Rio a year after he drew Coach of the Year votes was entirely due to owner Mark Davis’ burning wish to bring back Jon Gruden, who was granted an uncommonly long timeline for NFL coaches.
The Raiders infamously signed Gruden to a 10-year, $100 million contract that was going to give him ample opportunity to revive a franchise he helped build into a Super Bowl contender in the early 2000s. Gruden’s coup — he also held the final say in personnel matters — spelled the end of McKenzie’s tenure and allowed him to have a hand-picked associate in general manger Mike Mayock.
Four Offseason Priorities
1. Find the right quarterback
No decision looms larger than choosing who will ultimately succeed Carr and try to execute McDaniels’ scheme. There’s no question McDaniels’ offense can work; he won six Super Bowls with the Patriots. But Carr never looked fully comfortable in the system to amplify the necessity of finding a quarterback who does mesh with McDaniels’ playcalling and demands. Las Vegas seems most likely to do so either through free agency or the NFL Draft where it’s slotted into the No. 7 overall pick.
2. Re-sign Josh Jacobs
Locking up running backs long-term typically backfires and the New England philosophy has always been to stray from doing so, but Las Vegas may have no other choice as it pertains to Jacobs. He was the unquestioned heart of this year’s team, as McDaniels lavished him with praise and labeled him as the exact type of player he wants to build the Raiders around. Jacobs’ influence in the locker room was large and his support for McDaniels could be cited as one reason why the players never turned on the coach despite a trying season.
3. Overhaul the defensive backfield
Cornerback Nate Hobbs is sure to be back in a starting role, but every other position should be up for grabs. The Raiders ranked 31st in the league in pass defense per Football Outsiders’ DVOA ratings, a major reason why they surrendered so many leads. Hobbs is someone to build around even though he took a step back during an injury-plagued second season and doesn’t project as a No. 1 cornerback going forward. Las Vegas might be best served by playing Hobbs in the slot like during his rookie season with two new starters on the outside. Free safety Tre’von Moehrig had a much larger sophomore slump than Hobbs and competition will need to be brought in to push him. That plan worked last year when strong safety Duron Harmon was signed in part to challenge former first-round pick Johnathan Abram. Harmon emerged as a team captain and the top-performing defensive back, leading to Abram’s midseason release, but the 31-year-old is now set to free agency. There will likely be mutual interest in Harmon returning, but the Raiders can’t stop there.
4. Get defensive coordinator Patrick Graham the right guys elsewhere
The secondary was the worst part of the Raiders’ defense, but the unit underperformed across the board. McDaniels’ offense wasn’t great either, but it finished above league average by most metrics and was probably good enough for a playoff berth. The defense was nowhere near that, but all signs point toward the highly regarded Graham getting a second chance next season. When he was initially hired, Graham said he didn’t need “his guys” to implement his defense and he could build around whomever Ziegler supplied. It’s fair to wonder if he now regrets those comments as many of the defenders looked overmatched in executing Graham’s complex defensive scheme. With a full offseason ahead instead of coming in on the fly, the Raiders should seemingly have a better opportunity to consult with Graham and target players who fit inside his preferred framework.
Gruden and Mayock were guaranteed a few more years to try to complete their turnaround before the former’s hateful and insensitive emails became uncovered last year, spurring another surprise departure. Gruden resigned midseason, and Davis later decided not to retain Mayock and interim coach Rich Bisaccia, despite the team reaching the playoffs for only the second time in 19 years.
The owner thought McDaniels and Ziegler were the right duo to lift Las Vegas higher. The two held an unbreakable bond dating to their days as college roommates at John Carroll University through their time as top confidants to coach Bill Belichick with the New England Patriots.
In their joint introductory news conference in Las Vegas, everyone expressly stated their view that the 2022 Raiders season wasn’t a rebuild but rather, “a reload … taking this to the next level,” in the words of Davis.
That messaging started to change in the midst of Las Vegas starting 2-7, with McDaniels preaching a long-term view of building something sustainable. McDaniels and Ziegler were never at risk of losing their jobs in the middle of or after their first season, even as some national media, talk shows and certainly fans questioned otherwise.
Fair or not, Carr — given the team’s consistently mediocre results with him as the starter — was always going to take the fall for a lost season. The Raiders finished with their third-worst record under Carr, an indefensible standing considering a trio of the All-Pro individual performances on the team.
Wide receiver Davante Adams set the franchise record for receiving yards with 1,516 in his first year with the Raiders and led the NFL with 14 receiving touchdowns. Running back Josh Jacobs won the NFL’s rushing title with 1,653 yards on the ground. Edge rusher Maxx Crosby made a midseason Defensive Player of the Year push and ranked third in the NFL with 81 quarterback pressures, per Pro Football Focus.
McDaniels struggled to navigate close games, as the Raiders went 4-9 in one-score contests. The same was true for when the team had big edges on the scoreboard, as it blew an NFL-record five leads of at least 10 points.
“I’ll try to be very constructive with myself in terms of things I need to do better,” McDaniels said. “There’s never been a year that I’ve coached where I didn’t feel like I could do a better job. So, I think that will definitely be true this year in a lot of areas.”
McDaniels has noted that the Raiders were “right there” on multiple occasions as it pertains to the close games, and there’s some truth to writing the aforementioned records off as bad luck.
That buys some time now, but it won’t next year if the same patterns emerge. No more excuses will suffice for a fan base that’s already started to revolt.
A man in a Carr jersey holding a “We Deserve Better” sign drew air time during the Raiders’ mostly listless regular-season finale loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. Social media videos showed the same man getting thrown out for a harmless “Bench McDaniels” sign later in the game.
Allegiant Stadium will likely need to boost its security corps if the Raiders expect to enforce the apparent anti-criticism policy in the event another season goes south next year. Or maybe the $2 billion venue Davis once christened as “where our opponents’ dreams come to die” will just become completely overrun with opposing fans instead.
Each of the Raiders’ last two games this year, against the San Francisco 49ers and then the Chiefs, featured a large contingent of traveling fans outnumbering the home faithful.
For the first time since Gruden returned in 2018 and tore down the roster to reconstruct it, the Raiders took a step back this season. It was an unacceptable decline for a number of reasons, and the trajectory can only continue for so long before those at the helm face consequences.
The good news, as is spelled out in various forms across many of the team’s mottos, is that winning solves everything. And despite this season’s discouraging results, Las Vegas may only be a few moves away from getting back on the winning path.
But “the process,” a phrase McDaniels references frequently, doesn’t start with the regular season next fall, in summer training camp or even at the spring start of the new league year when the Carr era will officially end. It starts now, as the future plans McDaniels and Ziegler are plotting at the team’s Henderson headquarters need to set the course for the Raiders getting back on track.
The pair wasn’t under immense pressure to deliver in their first year in Las Vegas, but they will be going forward. They know it and the hope for Raider fans should be in that urgency yielding results.
“I don’t think anybody can sit here right now and say that we performed above our expectation,” McDaniels said. “We didn’t do enough as a football team to earn the right to keep playing. …
“Me personally, I’m not satisfied or content with any phase. That doesn’t mean we didn’t try hard. It doesn’t mean we didn’t try to do the best we could. That doesn’t mean that everybody didn’t give great effort. The reality is, we’ve got to be more productive.”
Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or
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