The Raiders fell short in their first three games of this season and that meant Josh McDaniels had gone nearly 12 years without winning a game as a head coach heading into Sunday’s game.
McDaniels piloted the Broncos to a 49-29 win on November 14, 2010 and then lost three straight games before being fired in his second season on the job. On Sunday, McDaniels was able to end that long drought in a game against his old team.
After the 32-23 win was done, Raiders quarterback Derek Carr said it meant a lot to get McDaniels into the win column.
“I think for him, he’s trying to preach the right thing,” Carr said, via the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “He’s trying to teach us how to do it and the way that he’s seen success. I think now it validates some of the things he emphasized, and I would let him talk about what he emphasized. But the things he emphasized in the game, we did it in practice and then we did it in the game, and we won. I think it validates it for him. I didn’t even think about it being against his former team, but I gave him the ball at the end. I kept that for him and I said, ‘I know that you got a lot of wins at the other place, but it’s your first one here.’ I was able to do that, and that was a special moment for me to be able to hand that to him.”
McDaniels is the sixth head coach that Carr has played for since joining the Raiders and the hope in Vegas is that there will be a lot more wins to follow the first one. If not, it seems unlikely that Carr will still be around for a seventh coach to make his debut.
