Josh McDaniels reportedly lost the locker room before he was fired by the Las Vegas Raiders, and one of the ways he may have done that was by scolding the coach who has since replaced him.
McDaniels held a clear-the-air meeting with players and coaches last Thursday. Ian Rapoport of NFL Media said Sunday that the meeting served as an opportunity for players and assistants to rip into McDaniels, and the coach seemed to check out after that.
Jay Glazer of FOX Sports provided some more details about what happened during that meeting. According to Glazer, McDaniels asked linebackers coach Antonio Pierce to address the team. Pierce, a former New York Giants linebacker, spoke about how the Giants overcame massive odds to ruin the New England Patriots’ perfect season in 2007.
“Antonio Pierce got up there and said look guys, we have to have our own culture. It’s gotta be about culture here,” Glazer said. “He brought up the old Giants team that beat the Patriots, Josh McDaniels’ team in the Super Bowl in the 2007 season. He said no matter who we played, we thought we could beat them. We had a game plan that we could beat them. We have to believe it here with the Raiders [that] we can beat anybody.
“When he finishes up that speech, everybody thinks they’re great except for Josh McDaniels. Josh McDaniels goes over to [Pierce] and says, ‘Don’t ever talk about the Patriots like that.’ And then you really see how divided that building got. That got up to Mark Davis and I think Mark Davis looked at it and goes, ‘OK, I’m gonna choose the guy who believes that we can win every single week.'”
Pierce has since been named interim head coach of the Raiders.
McDaniels made a name for himself as an assistant with the Patriots. He has now had failed head coaching stints in Las Vegas and Denver. You can’t fault him for being proud of what he accomplished in New England, but his reputation took a massive hit with the Raiders.
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