For the second time in his NFL career, Josh McDaniels has been fired as a head coach before he made it through two full seasons. Replacing him in the interim is Antonio Pierce, who was a linebackers coach on the team. Here are five potential replacements for McDaniels as the Raiders’ next head coach.
Dave Ziegler
Getting the obvious out of the way first, if Ziegler manages to turn this 2023 campaign around in a significant way, then he will be the head coach going into next year. The team’s current record is 3-5, which isn’t great, but they’re far from completely sunk.
Keep in mind that the last time the Raiders fired their coach midseason (Jon Gruden), interim head coach Rich Bisaccia led them to the playoffs. They, then, let him walk and have been markedly worse since. Mark Davis could be looking to avoid repeating that mistake if Pierce coaches above expectations. Of course, he’ll have to turn the season around first, but it’s worth noting on a list like this.
Eric Bieniemy
For roughly the 1,000th time, Eric Bieniemy finds his name on a list of potential coaching hires.
He wasn’t getting jobs while being the offensive coordinator under Andy Reid for multiple reasons. Some of those reasons may involve organizational racism, to put it bluntly, but this article will not delve into that. There are other resources out there are better suited to explain it better than this article/author ever could.
As far as football reasons that Bieniemy was not getting hired as a head coach, those involve a lack of respect due to coordinating under one of the most prolific and creative offensive coaches of all time. Not to mention the amount of offensive talent on those Chiefs teams that would mask anyone’s shortcomings.
Now that he has Sam Howell looking like a serviceable NFL quarterback on a team that is going nowhere, Bieniemy is starting to break out of that mold. It’s been made clear that he’s tough and no-nonsense, but the Raiders are a franchise that has put up with nothing but nonsense for a long time now. He may be exactly what they need.
Jim Harbaugh
Many think of Harbaugh as an NFL quarterback, then skip right over to his coaching tenure to Stanford. The truth is, he began his coaching career as the Raiders’ quarterbacks coach for two seasons before being offered an FCS job. It’s not much, but it’s a tie to the franchise.
His career at Michigan has been surrounded by noise. From contract disputes, to NFL interviews and rumors, to a self-imposed suspension due to potential recruiting violations, to the most recent allegations, it’s been a bit of a mess. Despite that, he’s accrued a record of 79-25 while at his alma mater and made the College Football Playoffs twice in a row. That could increase to three by the time the season is over.
Add on that he also made a Super Bowl and three NFC Championship Games during his four years as an NFL coach, and his resume sure looks like it ranks among the top 10 coaches in the sport right now, regardless of the level.
Harbaugh is a culture changer, and as roughly stated before, the Raiders need one of those. Then again, it could look to fans like their third expensive, flashy coaching hire in a row doomed to repeat recent history.
Dan Quinn
Dan Quinn isn’t just the architect behind the most crushing Super Bowl loss in the history of the sport, even though many fans paint him as such. He’s also one of the most beloved defensive coaches in the game right now, and, despite the collapse, a Super Bowl head coach.
He’s got the Cowboys defense looking championship caliber again this year. They may be extremely turnover-reliant, but they’re getting those turnovers regardless. The fact that his former offensive coordinator for the Falcons’ Super Bowl team, Kyle Shanahan, is one of the best head coaches in the league right now means he knows how to hire the right people. That’s not a skill every head coach has (see: Matt LaFleur hiring Joe Barry and Mike Tomlin continuing to employ Matt Canada).
It may not be a very sexy pick, and he’d have a lot of personnel work to do on that defense, but he’s at least a proven commodity.
Ben Johnson
Johnson is one of the trendy coordinator names being thrown around this season. He’s got Jared Goff looking decent-to-good, and Detroit’s offense clicking for the most part. That, in and of itself, is enough for an interview.
It looks like another creative offensive mind is going to be what it takes to topple the Chiefs at the top of the NFC West. Johnson seems like a safe pick to make that happen. If Vegas truly isn’t going to trade Davante Adams, he’ll make the most out of him in a big way. If Amon-Ra St. Brown can look great with Goff, then he’ll make Adams look insane with a rookie quarterback.
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Featured image courtesy of NFL.com
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- Source: https://thegamehaus.com/nfl/5-head-coach-candidates-for-the-las-vegas-raiders/2023/11/02/
