The meeting that resulted in plenty of Raiders players saying plenty of things to and about former coach Josh McDaniels presumably included plenty of things that McDaniels didn’t want to hear. His successor said something during the meeting that McDaniels definitely did not appreciate.
Via Jay Glazer of Fox Sports, linebackers coach Antonio Pierce spoke at the meeting on behalf of McDaniels and the coaching staff. Pierce said the team needs its own culture. He cited the 2007 Giants, who believed they could win every game they played. He said the Raiders need that mindset.
Of course, that season ended with the Giants beating McDaniels’s Patriots in Super Bowl XLII, stopping New England from becoming the first team to ever go 19-0.
Pierce’s comments went over well with the players. They did not go over well with his now-former boss.
“Josh McDaniels then goes over to him and says, ‘Don’t ever talk about the Patriots like that,’” Glazer said. “And then you really saw how divided the building got. That got up to Mark Davis, and I think Davis looked at it and [went], ‘OK, I’m gonna choose the guy who believes we can win every single week.’”
So that’s the rest of the story. Now, Pierce can try to write a new story, with McDaniels gone for good.