Raiders players love the energy that Antonio Pierce brings to the locker room
The Las Vegas Raiders changed coaches in the middle of the 2023 season. They chose to roll with their linebacker coach, Antonio Pierce, as the interim leader of the football team.
While the media suspected the Raiders to fall into the ground, they surprised and finished with a 5-4 record under Pierce. The defense improved tremendously and finished the season ninth in EPA, according to RBSDM.com. All of this led to Mark Davis making Pierce the head coach of the Silver and Black 2024 and beyond.
Historically, interim head coaches do not have a good track record. This has led to early firings like Freddie Kitchen with the Cleveland Browns. Pierce hopes not to have the same fate as Kitchens, and his leadership qualities could be the reason why. On the Yahoo Sports Zero Blitz podcast, they discussed how the team loves Pierce’s energy.
I didn’t expect much when he became the interim coach last year and all of the talk about, you know, the Raider way and everything that seems like cliches. But when I talk to guys in that locker room, they tell me that it’s not that there’s a different energy. The guys love being there every single day. Guys want to be around his energy in a world where I think the best coaches are the ones who identify with the city in the franchise.
The Raiders and fanbase are excited about hiring Pierce as the head ball coach. It has kept players like Maxx Crosby and Davante Adams happy, wanting to stick around and believing they can win. Add that to the improvement on defense, and we could see the Raiders surprise in 2024.
Either way, the player’s morale is higher, leading to better football this season.
In other Raiders links:
- Raiders position battles to watch for training camp: Bleacher Report has the latest on the battles happening at training camp in July.
- Malcolm Koonce Raiders most underrated: Doug Farrar from Touchdown Wire does a film breakdown of Malcolm Koonce.
- Three things to watch at OTA’s this week: Las Vegas Review-Journal has the latest on this week’s OTA’s.