How promoting Antonio Pierce was an outside-the-box decision for the Raiders, and why it just might work

It’s more than 100 degrees outside for one of the Raiders’ first practices of the year, and Antonio Pierce is dressed in an all-black sweatsuit topped by a hoodie pulled snugly over his head.

The 45-year-old coach is more suited up than his players as they’re only in helmets, jerseys and shorts at the team’s Henderson headquarters six weeks before training camp begins in Costa Mesa, California.

Pierce is just as active as his team once practice starts, too, as he bounces from station to station during positional drills before settling in at a good vantage point during full-team periods. He’s rarely silent, barking encouragement and getting animated with his motions and handclaps.

Chalk it all up as another subtle way Pierce connects with his players. He doesn’t want to ask them for maximum effort and not exude it himself.

“He definitely brings it every day,” defensive tackle Christian Wilkins says. “He’s the tone-setter. He’s the culture-setter of this organization and everybody from the top down falls in line.

“The coaches, the players, we’ve got to bring it every day because, when you see your coach is bringing energy and has such high expectations of everyone, you don’t want to let him down.”

The approach is one of the reasons why Raiders owner Mark Davis removed the “interim” tag on Pierce from the second half of last year and named him the 23rd coach in franchise history this offseason. 

The way the 2023 Raiders rallied behind Pierce, going 5-4 under his watch, and campaigned for him to get the permanent gig makes it easy to gloss over the sheer improbability of his rise to the position.

At the start of last season, Pierce was going into his second year as an NFL assistant (linebackers coach) on then-Raiders coach Josh McDaniels’ staff. None of the other 31 current coaches in the NFL had served fewer than seven years coaching in the league before landing a head job.

Only one other, Detroit’s Dan Campbell, had never at least been a coordinator, but he had logged five years as an assistant head coach—a position much higher on the organizational chart than linebackers coach.

Given his nine years as a player in the NFL—including as a captain on the 2008 Super Bowl-winning New York Giants’ team—Pierce doesn’t come off as an outsider in the head-coaching ranks. But make no mistake—his hire signals the Raiders trying something new to break out of a two-decade funk as one of the NFL’s least successful teams. 

Pierce is the 12th coach since the Raiders reached the Super Bowl in 2003, and his profile differs drastically from not only his peers but his predecessors.

With Pierce, Las Vegas is emphasizing leadership over schematics, attitude over experience.

“The culture is in us,” Pierce says. “I mean, it’s in our DNA. We talk about it every day. That was the opening statement in my (first) team meeting with (the players), the Raider way, the Raider culture. That never changes.”

Interim coaches have a history for inspiring teams upon taking over, and Pierce was like a triple-shot version of that reputation a year ago. The problem for coaches like Pierce who have been promoted in the past is maintaining the initial adrenaline rush.

The league has trended away from keeping interim coaches in recent years, including the Raiders as Davis passed on Rich Bisaccia in favor of McDaniels two years ago, despite the latter leading the team to the playoffs in 2022.

Pierce is the first to make the jump since Doug Marrone with the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2017. Marrone may have lived up to his promise in his first year with the Jaguars by leading them to the AFC Championship Game, but bottomed out from there to a 1-15 record in 2020 (where he ironically had now-Raiders quarterback Gardner Minshew as his signal caller).

Ten coaches before Pierce have gone from interim to full-time in the last 25 years, accounting for a total of 32 seasons and only seven playoff appearances. It’s not a strong track of success but the Raiders believe Pierce is different.

“Because he was a player, he played in between the white lines,” cornerback Jack Jones said of what makes Pierce special as a coach. “When you’re a player (and there’s) a guy that’s never played ... and he’s trying to tell you how to make a tackle, how to do anything, I’m not saying that they’re wrong, because there is a lot of experts out here that never played a down, but it’s just harder to feel that. When you’re getting it from a former player, it’s almost like, ‘He did this before, so I don’t even have to question it.’”

Star receiver Davante Adams, who pushed for Pierce, calls the coach “a straight shooter.” Pierce’s lack of filter has occasionally gotten him into trouble, most notoriously midway through last season when McDaniels was still his boss.

Knowing the respect Pierce commanded in the locker room, McDaniels asked him to address the team following an ugly 30-12 loss to the Bears. Pierce, according to Fox Sports’ Jay Glazer, gave an impassioned speech about his playing days and how the Giants rebounded from a rough stretch to beat the previously-undefeated New England Patriots to win the championship.

McDaniels, the offensive coordinator for that New England team, reportedly rebuked Pierce afterwards and told him, “don’t ever talk about the Patriots like that.” But Pierce’s message resonated with the team, and made him an easier choice to fill the interim role a week later when Davis fired McDaniels.

“It’s real easy to follow a guy who understands the big picture and has the same mindset we have as players,” Adams said. “It’s easy to get behind a guy like that. Last year, up until probably [the] halfway point of the year, right before he became the guy, that’s when we fully bought in.”

Las Vegas has tried to do everything it can to help with Pierce’s perceived deficiencies and inexperience. The Raiders have the largest coaching staff in the NFL with 31 assistants under Pierce, including two former head coaches—assistant head coach Marvin Lewis (Cincinnati Bengals) and senior offensive assistant Joe Philbin (Miami Dolphins).

Pierce’s coach from his time with the Giants, Tom Coughlin, has also been around the Raiders frequently in an advisory role.

Lewis said one of Pierce’s greatest strengths is that he’s “not stuck on himself,” and “wants to hear other people’s point of view.”

That demeanor could be seen in the quarterback competition that dominated training camp. There was a sense that incumbent Aidan O’Connell was Pierce’s preference to win the job over Minshew, but the coach repeatedly said he would confer with general manager Tom Telesco and offensive coordinator Luke Getsy to make the final decision. 

Minshew’s mobility was a better fit for Getsy’s scheme, and Telesco was the one who signed the sixth-year veteran to a two-year, $25 million contract. Pierce pledged the better player who gave the Raiders the best chance to win would play, and that nothing else, like the promise of a younger player in the second-year O’Connell, would be a factor. 

It wasn’t a runaway, but Minshew was the better player in training camp—it’s more debatable who played better in a pair of preseason contests—and the decision to stick with him into the season was another example of Pierce keeping his word.

Integrity is a pillar of what Pierce hopes to build in Las Vegas. Energy is another. The players say a new voice emphasizing classic ideals is just what they need to get the Raiders back into contention.

“We trust AP because AP trusts us,” cornerback Nate Hobbs said. “As a player, that’s one of the biggest things you could you have from a coach is that trust, that credibility, and belief. He believes in you and that almost makes you more ready to go. I feel like that breeds ultimate buy-in and confidence.”

This story appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.