Josh McDaniels was fired midseason for the second time in his career as an NFL head coach this week after the Raiders finally decided to pull the plug on his failed tenure with the team after 1.5 seasons.
McDaniels, who did not do well in his first coaching job with the Broncos, had a lot of the same problems in Las Vegas and eventually the organization decided they couldn’t keep him around any longer even with his massive buyout. On Sunday, Jay Glazer of Fox Sports provided a report detailing how the Raiders reached that point, with a rather hilarious anecdote (or wildly frustrating, if you’re a Raiders fan) about a recent team meeting.
Per Glazer, Raiders captains “unloaded” on McDaniels and the coach had assistant Antonio Pierce speak for the staff in his place. During Pierce’s speech, he brought up playing for the 2007 Giants and how they were able to win a Super Bowl by establishing a culture of believing they could beat any opponent, which included the undefeated Patriots in the Super Bowl. That apparently went over well with everyone in the room except McDaniels, who just got mad at Pierce for daring to speak ill of his beloved Pats.
Inside scoopage of what went on behind the scenes that led the @raiders to fire head coach John McDaniels then.move onto Antonio Pierce as their new coach. #raiders @nflonfox pic.twitter.com/aLcymL3Gcy
— Jay Glazer (@JayGlazer) November 5, 2023
That got up to Mark Davis, who decided he’d rather roll with Pierce as head coach over McDaniels, who is now free to go back to New England for the second time after a failed stint as a head coach.