In 2021, the Las Vegas Raiders looked like an ascending team. They made the playoffs for just the second time in two decades and the players were rallying behind interim head coach Rich Bisaccia.
Instead of giving Bisaccia the full-time head coach job and retaining general manager Mike Mayock, owner Mark Davis decided to do an overhaul and hired Josh McDaniels and Dave Ziegler – both were fired before finishing a second season. Mayock has been out of the NFL since the Raiders fired him and he’s still questioning why Davis didn’t retain them.
“You come off something where you think – you inherit a four-win team and three years later, you win 10,” Mayock said on the April 2 episode of “3 & Out.”. “You’re on the 9-yard line against the Super Bowl Cincinnati Bengals with a chance to tie the game with four downs in 35 seconds. We didn’t get it done. So, I kind of came off that season thinking, ‘OK, it was a crazy year.’ … Jon Gruden got fired. Henry Ruggs was in that awful accident that killed a woman. We had a lot of bad things happen, and Rich Bisaccia was unbelievable, and to this day, I can’t believe he’s not a head coach in the NFL.
“And I think Rich and I saw things the same way, and I think we saw that there could have been a future there, building on that playoff team. So, getting fired – I kind of, I was like, ‘Wow.’ I understand there can be individual criticism on some of the draft picks, and I certainly understand why. Not everybody knows why guys got picked when they got picked.”
Mike Mayock Thought Las Vegas Raiders Were Building Momentum
It will never be known if the Raiders were just able to catch lightning in a bottle in 2021 or if they were truly building something special under Rich Bisaccia. Replacing him with Josh McDaniels was a mistake so the team likely wouldn’t have been worse off.
Mike Mayock really felt like he was going to be back with Bisaccia after their playoff run.
“We were 6-7 at one point, and I’m sure Mark Davis was sitting there thinking, ‘I’m going to move on.’ And we were able to win the last four, we were the No. 5 seed in the AFC, and we gave the Raiders their second playoff team in 21 years,” Mayock said. “So, I think there was some optimism between Rich and I and the coaching staff and the scouting staff that we were going to build something.”
It’s difficult to know what could’ve been but Mayock thought that they were building something.
Mark Davis Didn’t Repeat Same Mistake
Two years after passing on Rich Bisaccia, Mark Davis had another big decision to make regarding an interim head coach. Though Antonio Pierce didn’t lead the Raiders to the playoffs, he did have a 5-4 record and the respect of his players. Unlike Bisaccia, Davis decided to give the full-time job to Pierce.
While the current team and the 2021 team are different, the Pierce tenure will likely be a good indicator of whether or not Davis made a mistake with Bisaccia.
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Ex-Raiders GM Mike Mayock Questions Mark Davis Decision