A former head coach reveals the Raiders' deep-seated issues, suggesting a decades-long rebuild might be necessary to rescue the struggling franchise.
The Las Vegas Raiders are now 2-10 after Sunday’s loss against their division rivals, the Los Angeles Chargers. Heading into the season, no Raiders fan would have expected the disaster that the 2025 season would become. In fact, there were many around football that had pretty high expectations for Las Vegas.
Bringing in former Super Bowl-winning head coach Pete Carroll and reuniting him with quarterback Geno Smith after an offseason trade made fans believe that the Raiders would be a threat week in and week out. On top of those two additions, they took the most talented running back in the draft with the sixth overall selection, and their tight end was coming off a historic rookie season. All signs pointed to an improvement from the 2024 season, a major one at that.
Instead, the Raiders sit at the exact same record they did one year ago – 10 losses in 12 games. They haven't won a game since Week 6 against the Tennessee Titans – the worst team in the league. With such a disappointing season, everybody is talking about how bad the situation is in Las Vegas, including their former head coach.
"They might need decades to fix this bad boy," former head coach Antonio Pierce said during an appearance on CBS' NFL Today. "I'm just saying. One and done, one and done, one and done... is there another coach gone? Another coordinator? Listen, there's gonna be something I talk about a little later where everybody's pointing fingers. But at some point, point there and the thumb points back."
Pierce was the head coach of the Raiders for 26 games across the 2023 and 2024 seasons. He became the interim coach after Week 8 in 2023 after the Raiders fired Josh McDaniels. Pierce showed promise, winning five of the team’s remaining nine games that year. 2024 wasn’t as kind to Pierce and the Raiders; they only won four games all season. He was fired after the season.
Despite things not going right for Pierce, even when he was leading the way, he wasn’t one to mince his words on the current state of the team. Hopefully, it doesn’t take decades to right the ship in Las Vegas, but by the looks of it, the Raiders won’t be a winning team anytime in the near future.
The quarterback situation with Geno Smith has been awful. Still, they have refused to give anybody else a real shot because of how high a price the Raiders paid for Smith in the offseason. The offensive line is one of, if not the worst, in the league in both the passing and running game. The team lacks real promising talent outside of a few names. Simply put, the future looks bleak in Las Vegas – even the team’s former head coach knows it.