ESPN Ranks *Raiders Coaching Staff* DEAD LAST In The NFL!

According to ESPN, we have the 32nd ranked NFL coaching staff. And if you're wondering, that's last, because there's only 32 teams in the NFL. I know what you're expecting. You're expecting me to come on here and tell you why that's maybe not the case. Maybe I'm going to get angry. Maybe I'm going to scream and yell. I'm going to rant. I'm going to do a lot of pointing into the camera and I'm going to tell you, I'm going to be like, can you believe this? Can you believe ESPN did this to us? I might do a little bit of that. But before I get into the article that talks about how not great our coaching staff is, I want to come at this from a logical point of view. Yes, ESPN ranked our coaching staff last. Here's the thing. Somebody has to be last, right? And it makes sense if you're just looking at it broad strokes, the picture in front of you, interim head coach, very good defensive coordinator, offensive coordinator that wasn't the first choice of the interim head coach. I understand why some people would say they are by default the worst coaching staff because they've yet to show as a collective unit how good they're going to do. However, we did see Antonio Pierce take over an absolute ---- show circus last year and turn it into a team that was without question 10 times improved from where they were with Josh McDaniels. They went five and four in his tenure. He won games with a rookie fourth-round quarterback and an interim play caller. And there's no doubt about it that the players were pulling a Rudy if they didn't sign Antonio Pierce to a long-term extension to be the full-time head coach. Max Crosby, Devontae Adams, all the captains on the team would have handed their jerseys in if this guy wasn't hired. And maybe that had to do with how Rich Bisaccia was handled, right? But there's no doubt about it that our best players, our best players who happen to be all pros, otherworldly athletes, best players at their position in the National Football League went to bat for Antonio Pierce. And there's also no denying that part of our worst coaching staff in the National Football League was getting head coaching interviews in Patrick Graham. He was a finalist for the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks position. Fortunately for us and unfortunately for him, he didn't get that job and he came back to lead what is now one of the best defenses in the league. Luke Goetze, I get it, that's a questionable hire and he wasn't our first decision. But to sit here and say that we are without a doubt the worst team in the National Football League in terms of coaching staff, I don't buy it. And we're gonna read a little article. It's on Raiders Beat. We're gonna read what they talked about here. We're gonna get into how they ranked us. But before we do that, we're trying to hit 10,000 subscribers before the new league year. Hit that sub button. About 70% of the people who watch these videos are not subscribed. If you're a lurker, hit that sub button. Join the gang. Let's get it. The article starts by saying, Max Crosby talked about the doubters this week and said he and his teammates love hearing the beep when people talk trash about the Raiders. Going back long before Crosby with this team, the Raiders have always been a lightning rod for criticism. And this week, an ESPN report gave Crosby a little more of what he likes. ESPN's Ben Slowack wrote a column on Thursday ranking the NFL coaching staff. And not surprisingly, he ranked the Raiders as worst in the league. And this was Slowack's explanation. I want to be very clear. I like Patrick Graham. Check my Patrick Graham receipts. I'm in on Graham, okay? But some team has to be 32 out of 32. See, this is what I've been saying. It's almost like by default, we're gonna just pick the interim and that offensive coordinator who just got fired. And again, that makes sense. I totally understand it. And he said, even if there's reason for optimism, that unfortunate title falls on the Raiders. I'm always suspicious of an interim to head coach promotion. The best success story from an interim promotion the last 20 years is former Cowboys coach Jason Garrett. Do you really want to be angling for a Jason Garrett arc? And then he goes on to say, and before you look at Pierce's profile five years ago, Pierce was a linebackers coach at Arizona State. I don't mind a fast riser and all, but I do think NFL experience, just spending time on a lot of staffs with a lot of players, gives coaches the long view and steady hand necessary to run a franchise. It's not that being a long tenured NFL coach makes you good. It's that even the naturally good coaches need to learn lessons from experience over time. Pierce has yet to cure those at the mast. Gotta be honest, this guy makes great points. The only pushback I would say to that is yes, he does not yet have the experience to be in situations where he's got to think on his feet, make decisions, adjustments on the fly, long-term head coaching experience. But you know what he did that not a lot of interims did? He got guys like Marvin Lewis, like Tom Coughlin, like Norv Turner, like Joe Philbin to come in and help him fast track his mental ability to learn the coaching position at a rapid rate. And I don't think, I don't know if this is the end of the article, but this is not something that is mentioned by a lot of people when doubting Antonio Pierce. He knows what he doesn't know, which is one of the best attributes you can have, not just in sports, but in life. And he has surrounded himself with people who are able to help him make these decisions. I love seeing guys like Marvin Lewis on the sidelines. All right, Marvin Lewis isn't Bill Belichick, but he's had success winning the division in the AFC North, making it to multiple divisional rounds in the playoffs, which is something Antonio Pierce has yet to do. And surrounding yourself with guys like that is a good thing. He goes on to say the Raiders were plucky under Pierce last year. They went five and four after he took over, but the interim often enjoys an unsustainable emotional boost. It's fun playing for a beloved positional coach or coordinator for a few weeks after the former often disliked head coach is ousted. But that buff is only temporary and Pierce is well beyond it now. He goes on to say they tried to give Pierce some handrails on his towering ascent, hiring Marvin Lewis as an assistant head coach, but the inexperienced at offense coordinator, Luke Getze, worries him. If Pierce can ride the ups and downs and grow in the job, I can see him being a good head coach in a few years, a CEO with a strong culture like Campbell or Tomlin, and that's a rosy distant future. My expectations for this season are low. Okay, again, I stand corrected. He did mention Marvin Lewis, but then he countered it with Luke Getze. And again, I do think sneaky Luke Getze could be the key to this whole season. From what I saw in the preseason out of Luke Getze, I liked it. And from what I'm hearing from Raiders reporters in camp is that the offense is complex, it's creative, it knows how to use our talent very, very well. I didn't like Josh McDaniels' offense. And it was pretty good the year we went 6-11. Our offense was good, our defense was not good. I didn't like that he took pieces that we had and tried to mold them into what he wanted. This seems like AP told Luke Getze, take the guys that are already molded for what they do well and make an offense that puts them in the best position to succeed. It's not Derek Carr beat Tom Brady. It's Gardner Minchie was gonna roll out, so let's have a lot of movement and pre-snap motion and make the pocket roll to the right, roll to the left. It's going to come down to, can Luke Getze make sure that our offense, which has a bunch of healthy studs ready to run wide open, can he turn this into a consistent, well-oiled machine? And I think from what I've seen so far with the vanilla offense in the preseason, he is scheming guys wide open. Then it's gonna come down to Gardner Minchie and maybe Aiden O'Connell. If he plays a few games this season, can they just be that point guard and distribute the ball? Raiders beat now goes on to say, there is a strong expectation that the Raiders will have one of the better defenses in the league this year. But it'll be interesting to see how the offense responds in this first season under Luke Getze. There is hope within the organization that Aiden O'Connell would seize the starting job, but the preseason played out in a way that made the decision very difficult for Pierce and Telesco. Minshew ended up being named the starter and it would appear from the outside that he essentially was backed into the job. Nevertheless, Pierce gave Minshew a strong endorsement when he announced the decision and it'll be interesting to see how the offense responds to one of the most unique quarterback situations in the league. With so many questions around the offensive line, some suggest Minshew might have gotten the job because his ability to improvise when plays break down. With Khalil Mack and Joey Bosa waiting for the Raiders in week one, the idea does make a little sense. And that's what I said. I don't really think they gave the quarterback job to the better position player in terms of Aiden O'Connell being the better quarterback. I think it did come down to, we play three great defensive lines in the first four weeks and if our offensive line isn't 100% healthy, even if Colton Miller and JPJ are playing, they haven't gotten a lot of live game reps in the off season, we're gonna need somebody who can scramble and roll out of the pocket because we can't go with Aiden O'Connell getting hit and fumbling or not being able to step up into the pocket or roll out to the right or left because he has limitations mobility-wise. If Gardner Minshew can survive, roll out of the pocket, if we go two and two or better, I think he stays as the quarterback. If we go one and three or better, I think the switch is made to Aiden. I don't think we have the worst coaching staff in the league. It's not top 10, it's not top 15, it might not even be top 20. AP and Graham and Getzey together have to prove that they can hold the fort down. I'm not gonna just crown these guys. I do think they're going to work, but only time will tell. And we also have to understand that it takes a while for a new offense to come together. If it doesn't look great the first few weeks, we have to see how it gets better throughout the season. Our defense did not start out playing amazing last year in the beginning. It wasn't until right before Antonio Pierce took over that this defense started to look legitimate. So we have to wait and see how the offense molds and meshes together with all these new weapons. And we are going to prove this guy wrong if we're able to do that. But for right now, I think this ESPN article actually made some good points and we'll have to wait and see exactly how AP and the gang can respond to all the doubters. Thank you so much for watching this video. Join that discord. It is free. We're at 50 members. 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