The NFL coaching carousel is still completing its final laps, and all sorts of lists, rankings and ratings are coming out at a dizzying rate, too. One of the best was an ESPN piece ranking the coaching hires for the last five seasons, and the Las Vegas Raiders didn’t fare well at all.
This wasn’t exactly surprising to the fan base, but the way the ranking was laid out was definitely worth a chuckle or two. In a ranking of 37 hires, former Raiders coaches Antonio Pierce, Pete Carroll and Josh McDaniels were ranked 30th, 31st and 32nd, respectively.
The piece was authored by Bill Barnwell, and he offered some pungent comments on just how bad these hires were. Commenting on Pierce, Barnwell wrote, “Pierce's game management wasn't up to modern NFL standards. And with Patrick Graham running the defense, Pierce wasn't really bringing much to the table.”
For those who missed the news, Graham is now the defensive coordinator of the Pittsburgh Steelers, so if you know any Steelers fans you might want to send a sympathy card or two.
As for Carroll, Barnwell stated that after winning the opener against the eventual AFC champion New England Patriots, the Raiders “hopeless for most of the season,” especially when tackle Kolton Miller and tight end Brock Bowers left the lineup due to injuries.
On the other side of the ball, “Carroll's defense never showed any consistent aptitude for stopping offenses.” Carroll also ended up firing two coordinators, special teams coordinator Tom McMahon and highly-paid offensive coordinator Chip Kelly
McDaniels earned a special kind of enmity from his players during his tenure in Las Vegas, and Barnwell pointed out that the Raiders were a playoff team when he took over, something that seems unimaginable now. McDaniels cleaned house, traded two draft picks for receiver Davante Adams, then signed edge rusher Chandler Jones as a free agent before and moving on from quarterback Derek Carr to hand the keys to the offense to Jimmy Garoppolo.
The moves ranged from “ill-advised to disastrous,” according to Barnwell, and McDaniels was fired midseason, which also happened to him with the Denver Broncos. As Barnwell noted, “I’m not sure there's another coach who was fired before completing two seasons in two different head coaching roles.”
Barnwell’s piece has some other highlights that are worth noting when it comes to hires that were rated worse than those of the Raiders. Former Jacksonville Jaguars coach Urban Meyer wholeheartedly deserves his rank of last, and certainly Nathaniel Hackett of the Denver Broncos earns his a couple of slots above Meyers.
It’s also interesting to note that Frank Reich turned up on this list for his work ruining the footwork and confidence of quarterback Bryce Young. It might be hard for the Raiders to do worse than they’ve done with their recent terrible trio, but it is possible.