Antonio Pierce remains in charge of Raiders for now

HENDERSON, Nev. — It was the day after yet another disappointing season for the Las Vegas Raiders. The embattled coach showed up for his end-of-season news conference and while he didn’t definitively say he would be back to coach the team in 2025, Antonio Pierce sure sounded like someone who planned to remain on the job.

When asked about speculation regarding his status, Pierce said: “I haven’t heard anything different.” saying any talk “It’s only coming from the outside. It’s not inside the building.

“So, to me, there's nothing to clean up until I hear from inside the building.”

It seemed both interesting and odd that Pierce seemed to intimate he has not talked to owner Mark Davis or general manager Tom Telesco. You would think the head coach and his GM have a steady if not daily dialogue and that the owner, who has a vested interest in the performance of his football team, would have an open line of communication.

Perhaps Pierce didn’t articulate it clearly enough and that he does talk to both Telesco and Davis on a regular basis. But the fact remains that as of Monday afternoon, he was still employed as the Raiders’ head coach.

Pierce said while he believes he has made progress and has grown as an NFL head coach, he also said there’s room for growth and improvement. When you’re competing in the same division as Andy Reid, Jim Harbaugh and Sean Payton you better step up your game. The Raiders failed to win a game vs. their AFC West foes this season.

"Got to get better players,” he said. “Got to coach better. Got to do a lot of things better when you only win four games.”

As for Pierce personally, he said his growth includes ”Everything that a head coach needs to improve in.
"Yeah, I'm going to go back to it, just patience. What I need to do a better job of, and I was asked that question earlier, I need to go with my gut. I did that a lot. I was better at that last year. And this year, I didn't do what I wanted to do as much as I wanted to do it."
He admitted he probably didn’t make the best decision in starting Minshew over O’Connell.
“I made that decision and obviously we made a decision to move on from Gardner after Week 5, I believe, and then things just kind of went left and right after that."
The fact Pierce sill has the support of his players despite a 4-13 campaign may explain why he’s still the head coach of the Raiders. It was that way after Sunday’s 34-20 loss to the Chargers at Allegiant Stadium and it was more of the same Monday as the team gathered for the final time at the team’s Henderson headquarters before going their separate ways for the off-season.

"Just being myself like I am every day,” he said on why he felt like his players responded to his coaching. “I never change win, lose or draw. I'm AP regardless of if I'm standing in front of you or I'm outside this building, and that's how I treat those men. I treat them like men. They're pro football players. They understand that.
“We talk and we have honest conversations. It doesn't just happen when we win. We don't just sit there and pat each other on the back. When we lose, we're straightforward. It was challenging though when you lose 10 straight, how do you keep going in front of the team and motivate them? But to their credit, and I keep talking about it, learning how to be a pro, right? Especially with a young team. And that's what we constantly talked about. I thought they did a good job just buying into what the message or the mindset was of each and every week.
“And regardless, and I've said it in this room before, win, lose or draw, those guys competed. They gave effort. There's improvement there. You've seen some young players really step up. And that's what I think this last month really was for us. Obviously, we won two games in a row and lost last night. But I thought you saw some things that you could say, 'Man, they were working on it. You can see the technique. You can see the fundamentals. You can see the scheme. You can see the players improving.' And that's why I think it's a plus and a positive to our team."
Pierce said he doesn’t plan any changes to his staff. He brought in Scott Turner and his dad Norv to be the team’s offensive coordinator and he was pleased with the job they did.
“Yeah, I thought just when you watched us play, it just looked right, right?,” he said. “I’ll just go from the run game alone, and we still have a lot more improvement there. We didn't end the season where we wanted to running the football. Obviously, everybody knows that’s what we want to do and being physical, but I thought you just saw more chemistry, some more continuity, attention to details and execution from there.
“I thought our pass protection, even again last night against a very good team with some D-Ends and some outside ‘backers that can rush, did a good job protecting the quarterback. And like we always talked about with the Raiders, we wanted to see shots down the field and that happened more and more often.”
Pierce said despite the rash of injuries, the 10-game losing streak and coming up short of expectations, he was grateful for his players not quitting on him, or themselves.
“You can see the emotions and the hurt after that loss last night,” he said. “That was sad to see from our guys, but like I told them, one loss, one season, that's not who we are and that's not going to define us."