Graney: A day late, Raiders make right call in firing Pierce

It was the correct decision but came a day late. The Raiders needed to fire coach Antonio Pierce.

We’ll see if they can upgrade. They haven’t been too successful lately when deciding who should run the team.

It’s just too bad Pierce was trotted out to hold an end-of-season news conference Monday. To stand and answer questions about how the team’s 4-13 record happened and what can be done to correct things in the future.

He shouldn’t have been put in such a position. That was dead wrong.

I can’t believe owner Mark Davis wasn’t strongly leaning a specific way before then. I can’t believe the outcome of one game against the Chargers on Sunday would have swayed him otherwise.

You don’t make this sort of call off one result.

The Raiders knew which way this was going. Pierce should have been saved from the awkward experience of having to speak Monday.

If not, who exactly was watching this season? Who didn’t witness the 10-game losing streak and how porous the Raiders looked through most of it? Who didn’t understand how much a change in direction was needed?

Nice guy, bad decisions

Pierce is a nice guy who was in over his head when it came to on-field decision making. He was one of the NFL’s most conservative coaches after taking over on an interim basis last season. He struggled with things such as timeouts and challenges and when to go for it on fourth down. Things a coach needs to be good at.

He talked about being a physical running team and produced a club that couldn’t run from the bathroom to the kitchen. The Raiders also dealt with key injuries, juggled between quarterbacks and asked too many young players to perform at a high level. It all made for a losing effort.

Pierce had too many folks in his ear. I’m not sure things would have been better if he was more of an instinctual coach. We’ll never know.

When asked Monday what he needed to improve on, Pierce said: “Everything that a head coach needs to improve on.”

And this: “Got to get better players. Got to coach better. Got to do a lot of things better when you only win four games.”

The Raiders will keep general manager Tom Telesco in place, so we know who won any sort of power struggle between the two. It was the right call.

Telesco had a solid first draft with the Raiders and should be given time to build a contending roster. The team is far away. The Raiders are one of the NFL’s least talented clubs across the board. They have a few great players, but not near enough good ones.

They need someone with far more experience running the sidelines. Someone who has been a head coach or at least a coordinator at the NFL level. Someone with the ability to develop a quarterback. Pierce wasn’t that guy.

The Raiders will now look for their fifth coach since moving to Las Vegas in 2020, including those with interim tags. Davis has yet to get things right.

If he needs to lean on Telesco or new minority owner Tom Brady for guidance, so be it. This is a critical move for Davis. The AFC West is too stacked with good coaches and quarterbacks for him to miss yet again.

Had their backs

As for Pierce, he will be remembered as a players’ coach. Someone who never lost the locker room despite all the losing. Someone who had the support of his team until the end.

“We love (Pierce),” safety Isaiah Pola-Mao said Monday. “He takes a lot of blame for a lot of stuff, but we as players know where we messed up. We know how we could have been better. You could see how hard we played for him. We all take pride in that.”

Pierce wasn’t the right fit. The Raiders needed to fire him. It just came a day too late.

Ed Graney, a Sigma Delta Chi Award winner for sports column writing, can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 7 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on X.