It’s never a good sign for a football team when its head coach is explaining that they are not intentionally trying to lose games, but that’s where Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce found himself on Monday.
A 20-15 loss to the Rams on Sunday dropped the Raiders to 2-5 on the season and Pierce said at his press conference that he didn’t expect the team to be in such a “dark moment” this year. Pierce also said that the team can’t get comfortable with losing or stop working hard to turn things in a better direction.
“There’s still a lot of football left,” Pierce said. “The season is not over. We’re not tanking. We’re not trying to lose games to do anything better for the future. Hell, we’re trying to be the best team we can and, right now, we’re not a good team.”
The problem for Pierce and the Raiders is that they don’t have to tank in order to lose games and it’s hard to see the current roster making the kinds of strides necessary to wind up anywhere other than the top of the draft come the end of the season.