The receipts just keep coming in for how terrible a hire Josh McDaniels was by the Raiders.Today a big one came out. It was the NFLPA rankings. And they put McDaniels dead last in terms of head coaches. Even while giving favorable ratings of the Raiders organization as a whole.
Per @NFLPA report cards, where players graded owners, coaches, teams on working conditions:
#1 Team: @Dolphins
#32 Team: @Commanders#1 Coach: Andy Reid
#32 Coach: Josh McDaniels#1 Owner: Stephen Ross
#32 Owner: Clark Hunt(Facilities investment was massive in owner grades.)
— Charles Robinson (@CharlesRobinson) February 28, 2024
What’s most interesting about this is it comes with zero surprise.
The moment I walked into the Raiders locker room following their first game since McDaniels was gone, I could’ve predicted this.
Antonio Pierce took over as interim head coach and the celebration was immediate. Raiders offense had just scored more than 20 points for the first time all season.
You could hear the party happening in the Raiders locker room. And walking into a thick cloud of cigar smoke and a team that clearly had an enormous weight lifted. I turned to another member of the media and said “There’s a real ‘ding dong the witch is dead’ feeling to all this.”
After just 25 games with McDaniels as the uninspiring face of this team, they were a shell of themselves.
Everyone felt it too. From the players to the coaches to the front office, to the media relations. He didn’t get it and he didn’t care. And this was the inevitable result.
McDaniels came onboard as Raiders head coach talking like he had learned from his doomed 28-game stint with the Broncos a decade ago. Then he went out and made all the same mistakes, leading to an ever shorter stint in Las Vegas.