Chalk it all up as another subtle way Pierce connects with his players. He doesn’t want to ask them for maximum effort and not exude it himself.
“He definitely brings it every day,” defensive tackle Christian Wilkins says. “He’s the tone-setter. He’s the culture-setter of this organization and everybody from the top down falls in line.
“The coaches, the players, we’ve got to bring it every day because, when you see your coach is bringing energy and has such high expectations of everyone, you don’t want to let him down.”
The approach is one of the reasons why Raiders owner Mark Davis removed the “interim” tag on Pierce from the second half of last year and named him the 23rd coach in franchise history this offseason.
The way the 2023 Raiders rallied behind Pierce, going 5-4 under his watch, and campaigned for him to get the permanent gig makes it easy to gloss over the sheer improbability of his rise to the position.
At the start of last season, Pierce was going into his second year as an NFL assistant (linebackers coach) on then-Raiders coach Josh McDaniels’ staff. None of the other 31 current coaches in the NFL had served fewer than seven years coaching in the league before landing a head job.
Only one other, Detroit’s Dan Campbell, had never at least been a coordinator, but he had logged five years as an assistant head coach—a position much higher on the organizational chart than linebackers coach.
Given his nine years as a player in the NFL—including as a captain on the 2008 Super Bowl-winning New York Giants’ team—Pierce doesn’t come off as an outsider in the head-coaching ranks. But make no mistake—his hire signals the Raiders trying something new to break out of a two-decade funk as one of the NFL’s least successful teams.
Pierce is the 12th coach since the Raiders reached the Super Bowl in 2003, and his profile differs drastically from not only his peers but his predecessors.
With Pierce, Las Vegas is emphasizing leadership over schematics, attitude over experience.
“The culture is in us,” Pierce says. “I mean, it’s in our DNA. We talk about it every day. That was the opening statement in my (first) team meeting with (the players), the Raider way, the Raider culture. That never changes.”
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