The Las Vegas Raiders finished the 2025 NFL regular season on a high note after securing the No. 1 pick and beating the Kansas City Chiefs. In the grand scheme of things, the Week 18 win doesn’t have much of an effect on things going forward, but it does give the team something positive to build off of.
Amid the nightmare season, Raiders owner Mark Davis has stayed very quiet. He typically doesn’t speak much during the season, but he’s been especially quiet during the second half of the season.
He’s got some big decisions to make this offseason, as there’s a good chance he has to fire another head coach. However, for now, he’s celebrating. He had a chance to share how he was feeling after the Raiders beat the Chiefs for the first time since moving to Las Vegas.
“I’m happy with the win. I always want to win a game. We beat the Chiefs, so yeah, I’m happy,” Davis told Raiders.com’s Paul Gutierrez.
Gutierrez also noted that Davis admitted to him that there are some decisions to make and is happy to have the No. 1 pick, but doesn’t want to worry about those things right now.
Is Davis or Tom Brady Going to Make Coaching Decision?
With Davis, it’s usually easy to figure out whether or not he’s going to fire a coach. More often than not, if that coach is on the hot seat, he’s going to fire them. He fired Antonio Pierce after one season and fired Josh McDaniels before he finished a second season. He even fired Jack Del Rio just a year after he led the team to a 12-4 record.
That said, he might not be the one running point on this. Last year, minority owner Tom Brady finally started to take on a role within the organization. While it’s not necessarily clear exactly how big that role is, he’s going to have some impact on football decisions.
He likely had a hand in the decision to fire Pierce last year, but it’s hard to know how he’ll manage coaches that he helped hire. He played 20 years with one head coach, so he knows how important stability is. It still feels most likely that Pete Carroll will get fired, but nothing is guaranteed yet.
Other Big Decisions Loom
What the Raiders are going to do at head coach is the first big decision they have to make, but there will be plenty of big decisions this offseason. Las Vegas is likely going to use the No. 1 pick to draft a quarterback. Even if Carroll stays, the offensive coordinator hire is going to be massively important.
That coach is going to be responsible for grooming either Fernando Mendoza or Dante Moore. The Raiders can’t afford to make the wrong hire like they did this year with Chip Kelly or last year with Luke Getsy.
The most logical route would be to hire a top offensive mind as the head coach, but the Raiders have never been predictable when it comes to coaching hires.
Mark Davis Delivers Honest Message After Raiders Beat Chiefs