How Raiders, Commanders connect with Chicago firing Shane Waldron

Both the Raiders and Bears interviewed Kliff Kingsbury for a vacant offensive coordinator role this past offseason. Las Vegas opted for Luke Getsy and Chicago hired Shane Waldron. Just 10 months later, Kingsbury and the Commanders are in first place and Getsy and Waldron are now unemployed.

Fresh off their bye, the Raiders (2-7) will introduce the league to their new offense at Miami (3-6) on Sunday (1 p.m. ET, CBS). But somewhat lost in last week’s trade-deadline deals was an important story by CBS insider Jonathan Jones, who reported that Raiders players spoke openly in a team meeting last Monday. Jones summarized the meeting, which came on the heels of Las Vegas firing Getsy and two other offensive staff members, on That Other Pregame Show Sunday morning.

“Head coach Antonio Pierce would elevate Scott Turner to interim OC,” Jones explained, “make senior advisor Joe Philbin the offensive line coach, and bring longtime NFL coach Norv Turner in as an offensive advisor; Norv, of course, the father of Scott. But that is not all. On Monday afternoon, there was a player-staff meeting, and in it players spoke up. They talked about needing a more efficient schedule, that there was too much time wasted, there needed to be more structure, more discipline, more accountability within the entire program.

“The hope is, these changes from that vent session will help the two-win Raiders have a strong back-half of the season, just like last year.”

Co-host Amy Trask, who spent more than 26 years with the Raiders until she resigned as CEO in May of 2013 – nearly two years after owner Al Davis passed away, had a follow-up question for Jones. Noting that director of equipment operations Bob Romanski and athletic trainer emeritus Rod Martin have been with the organization for nearly a century combined, Trask said she was curious.

“Here’s why it puzzles me,” Trask responded. “Yes, Antonio Pierce is in his first year as a head coach but he has on staff Marvin Lewis, Joe Philbin, Rob Ryan, men with a lot of experience. And beyond that, the head trainer and the equipment manager have both been with the Raider organization for roughly 43, 44 years.

“And the reason I note that is that, in my experience, the trainer and the equipment manager have a real sense of the pulse of what’s going on with the team. They are with the players every day. They spend a lot of time, they hear player discussions, so the question I have is, did they sense there were problems? If not, that’s a little odd. If they did sense there were problems and didn’t share those with the head coach and the general manager, that’s a little odd. So, something about this puzzles me. That said, I’m hoping for a surge. I want the best for Raider fans.”

While Trask isn’t the only former employee to question the team’s current leadership, she did remind fans that the team won three of its final four games last season. The last head coach to defeat Kansas City, which has won 15 straight since the Raiders beat them at Arrowhead on Christmas Day, Pierce was 5-4 in 2023 before Mark Davis removed Pierce’s interim title.

For more information on the Raiders, visit the Las Vegas team page at ProFootballPost.com.