Getty Josh McDaniels & Mark Davis.
It didn’t take long — about a day — for some key details about the firing of Las Vegas Raiders fired head coach Josh McDaniels and general manager Dave Ziegler to get leaked to the media.
Though the Raiders’ embarrassing Week 8 loss to the Detroit Lions on Monday Night Football may have been enough to push owner Mark Davis to make a move, the decision was a long time coming, per Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer.
“According to several staffers, and involved parties, owner Mark Davis’s decision to blow up his football operation just 25 games after hiring McDaniels and Ziegler started to feel inevitable in recent weeks,” Breer wrote in a November 1 column. “Davis was volatile and angry. The players weren’t happy, either. And, finally, a noncompetitive effort on national television Monday in Detroit prompted Davis to push the button and detonate McDaniels’s program.”
Breer reported that things really started to go wrong after the team’s 17-13 Week 5 win over the Green Bay Packers. Even with the win, Davis had an “aggressive postgame meeting” with McDaniels. According to Breer, the fact that he was so upset after a win was the biggest sign yet that he was considering a change.
Josh McDaniels Botched QB Situation
Where McDaniels and Ziegler may have sealed their fate was their handling of the Raiders’ quarterback situation.
According to a November 1 column from The Athletic’s Vic Tafur, Mark Davis “had no problem with” moving on from longtime starter Derek Carr. However, he did take issue with Ziegler’s cutting Carr after giving him three-year contract extension months earlier, according to Tafur.
It “not only led to an awkward two-week benching of Carr at the end of last season, but worse, had a no-trade clause that wound up letting the quarterback walk with no compensation to the Raiders,” Tafur wrote.
Then, replacing Carr with veteran quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo hasn’t worked out through eight games.
The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback has already missed two games with injury and leads the NFL with 9 interceptions. His struggles were amplified against the Lions when he missed star wide receiver Davante Adams on multiple plays that could’ve been touchdowns.
There was also Week 7 against the Chicago Bears, when the team decided to start Brian Hoyer over rookie Aidan O’Connell. The Raiders lost that game 30-12 after Hoyer threw for just 129 yards and 2 interceptions. Both Breer and Tafur mentioned this as a reason for McDaniels’ undoing.
Mark Davis Met With Players
In what turned out to be a last-ditch effort to win back the locker room, McDaniels held a meeting with his players and opened the floor for players to vent about anything, according to Breer. That meeting didn’t go according to plan.
“The hope was the meeting would lead to increased accountability across the board,” Breer wrote. “Instead, the meeting turned into an airing of grievances.”
Davis has been an owner who likes to get input from his key players. Breer reported that the owner consulted players before making the final decision on McDaniels.
“In recent weeks, Davis had met with players, so the owner was well aware of those grievances, and where the stars stood on the direction of the team,” Breer wrote.
“And all of that led to Davis firing McDaniels and Zielger late Tuesday afternoon. The staff got a text from McDaniels’s chief of staff, Tom Jones, around 7 p.m. PT, and McDaniels delivered the news to his coaches shortly thereafter.”
It’s unclear which players Davis spoke to, but it seems safe to say they didn’t give McDaniels a ringing endorsement.
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Raiders Rumors: Telling Details on Josh McDaniels’ Dismissal Leaked to Media