Silver and black roots. What it means to be a Raider. Understand the “Raider style.”
These are the ties that suffocate. Another year, another head coach, all in search of the yellowed, faded images of what a franchise used to be and how it could be again. All setting the stage for the next chapter of the Los Angeles/Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders, whose biggest problem is not a head coach or a quarterback, but an owner who keeps photocopying the identity of his father, Al Davis, instead to do so meaningfully and patiently. making your own.
It’s an imitation game under Mark Davis who is now five copies deep and whitewashed into nothing: from Dennis Allen to Jack Del Rio, Jon Gruden to Josh McDaniels, and now Pierce to whoever Davis thinks gets him closer. team and its legacy to a heyday that has barely appeared since the turn of the century. That will be six head coaches Davis has hired in the 13 years since he took over the franchise after his father’s death. They all came expressing their own personal understanding of what it meant to be a Raider and promising to recapture a proud history that grew more distant each year.
They entered, trying to restore The Raider Way. And off they go, and their results more often than not represent a Raider style that has been redefined in two decades of damning familiarity: full of mediocrity, unfulfilled promises, and a bloated roster of defunct contract coaches pushed into the ether. A pattern of results under ownership that, to be fair, was not simply a product of Mark Davis, but also an extension of Al’s later years. The story dates back to the firing of Art Shell after the 1994 season, which triggered an unfathomable streak of what will be 15 head coaching hires in 31 years once Pierce’s replacement is named.
This is not a trend. They are rubble.
It continues today because of the pursuit of a culture that has not existed (and has not consistently existed) since the mid-1990s. It is a creeping plague that is no different than Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones still being alive. feverish memories of his teams from 30 years ago. It’s facilitated by an owner like Mark Davis, whose wandering impatience from one coach and general manager to another is no different than what made former team owner Dan Snyder an astonishing on-field failure with his Washington franchise. All marked by a sudden apathy in the quarterback, who was presented with significant resolutions in the 2024 draft but, curiously, lacked the aggression of the “Raider Way” to implement a plan.
To be clear: This is not a criticism of Pierce’s firing. It is a condemnation of the process that created this situation. Starting with Davis restarting the team under Pierce in 2023, after reuniting with Maxx Crosby, Davante Adams and Josh Jacobs, two of whom are no longer on the roster, and then choosing a head coach who is no longer on the roster.
All of this set in motion a path to 2024 that veered into a crater, starting with the failure to secure a real answer at quarterback for Pierce, and then ending by sending him addressing the media a day before he found out they were. saying goodbye It was such an awkward situation inside team headquarters that, according to sources who spoke to Yahoo Sports, Pierce had already begun discussing possible changes to the coaching staff hours before learning he was going to lose his job.
The disjointed and embarrassing ending preceded a one-paragraph farewell:
The Las Vegas Raiders have welcomed Antonio Pierce back to his head coaching duties. We appreciate Antonio’s leadership, first as interim head coach and last season as head coach. Antonio grew up a Raiders fan and his silver and black roots run deep. We are grateful for his ability to reignite what it means to be a Raider throughout the organization. We wish nothing but the best for Antonio and his family in the future.
As expected, he paid tribute to the culture that Al Davis built, with references to Pierce’s “silver and black roots” and his “ability to rekindle what it means to be a Raider.”
Pierce went 9-17 and won four games in 2024. From that perspective, he truly embodied what it means to be a Raider. Especially under Mark Davis, whose teams now have a 91-137 regular season record since he took the reins of the franchise in 2011. That’s a .397 winning percentage that, compared to his peers who have a similar number of years as primary owner, he is worse than everyone except Jimmy Haslam of the Cleveland Browns (.345) and Shad Khan of the Jacksonville Jaguars (.301).
Since Mark Davis took over, The Raider Way hasn’t been all that different from the Jaguar Way or the Brown Way when it comes to actual results.
This is what happens when you hold on to a borrowed identity rather than a created one. When one of the primary factors in hiring your next head coach is whether he can recreate the culture of the past. You don’t hear the San Francisco 49ers constantly insisting on staying true to the offensive genius of how Bill Walsh built the 49ers in the 1980s. The Green Bay Packers aren’t obsessed with chasing coaches who preach the fundamental teachings of Vince Lombardi. There’s no underlined and repeated mantra about paying homage to something that should be celebrated occasionally in classic NFL Films reels and then shut down when the work of today starts.
Are there any outliers in this? Certainly. The Pittsburgh Steelers have found a way to stay consistent with their style of football for decades. So have the Baltimore Ravens. They regularly refer to the “Steelers brand of football” or the “Ravens type of player.” But there is a problem in both organizations that the Raiders avoid. They hire good coaches and front office executives and then they step aside and let them do their jobs.
Consider this for a moment: In the span of time that the Raiders will have made 15 head coaching hires since 1995, the Steelers will have made two and the Crows will have done three. It turns out that it’s much easier to maintain and grow a rooted culture when you actually let the coaching staff and front offices develop it.
Within the AFC West, other ownership groups have moved to establish that type of structure. That’s why the Kansas City Chiefs hired Andy Reid four days after the Philadelphia Eagles fired him in 2013. It’s why the Denver Broncos turned over all power of their football operation to Sean Payton. And that’s why the Los Angeles Chargers, not always considered the most forward-thinking ownership group in the NFL, looked to Jim Harbaugh as their culture builder last offseason, then allowed him to restructure everything as he saw fit.
Here’s what the Raiders face in their own division. They face ownership groups that are not only competent, but willing and able to make quality hires, put them under the full control of their franchises, and then get out of the way to let the results speak for themselves. There is little evidence that Davis ever did that. And now fans are being led to believe that maybe Tom Brady, who never ran an NFL franchise from the ownership suite, never coached an NFL team and never spent a single day as a personnel executive or evaluator. talents, could it be the magic wand needed to solve all problems?
Mark Davis will continue to be the common denominator in all of this. The sooner you recognize yourself as the root of your own Silver and Black problem, the better your chances of taking “what it means to be a Raider” and writing your own unique chapter, rather than photocopying another page from decades of disappointment.