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Former New York Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce has landed his first career NFL coaching gig, albeit under some cloudy circumstances.
On Monday, February 14, NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo reported the one-time Super Bowl champion reached an agreement with the Las Vegas Raiders to serve as the team’s new linebackers coach on head coach Josh McDaniels’ staff.
The move comes approximately two weeks after Pierce resigned from his position as defensive coordinator of the Arizona State Sun Devils. The former nine-year pro became the fifth ASU assistant to exit the program amid an ongoing NCAA investigation regarding numerous recruiting violations. Pierce, who not only served as the program’s defensive coordinator but also as their recruiting coordinator, is said to have played a significant role in the allegations, via Yahoo Sports:
Sources said members of the football program deliberately, blatantly and consistently broke rules related to hosting players during the dead period, including coach Herm Edwards meeting with recruits…
With Pierce’s power has also come division, as coaches have lost jobs, recruiting staff have felt pressure to blindly follow Pierce’s aggressive tactics and multiple sources said that those who insisted on avoiding recruiting gray areas were ostracized. That left a running joke on group texts and in phone calls this week about the mystery of who collected and documented all the receipts, emails and screenshots.
Pierce Finally Joins Forces With Former Giants Assitant
As highlighted by Garafolo, the move to hire Pierce not only re-inserts the former Giants captain into the NFL after a decade-plus removed from the league, it also unites him with ex-Giants defensive coordinator Patrick Graham. When Graham was originally hired as the defensive coordinator on Joe Judge’s Giants staff back in 2020, Pierce interviewed for an assistant role. While nothing materialized from the interview, Pierce and Graham will now work alongside one another in Las Vegas.
Graham, 43, spent two seasons in East Rutherford, guiding the Giants defense to a top-12 finish during his inaugural campaign as defensive coordinator. Despite the unit taking a step back in 2021 and undergoing changes at both head coach and general manager, co-owner John Mara made it very clear that the franchise wanted Graham to return in 2022. Unfortunately, that failed to come to fruition as the Raiders poached Graham from the G-Men’s staff on February 4.
Pierce’s Resume
Pierce spent five of his nine NFL seasons with the Giants, including his lone Pro Bowl campaign in 2007 — the same season the team went on to upset the then-undefeated New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. Pierce amassed nearly 500 total tackles over his Giants career, posting four seasons of 95-plus tackles. His 377 solo tackles rank within the top-10 in franchise history.
After retiring from the NFL in 2010 and a stint as an analyst on ESPN, Pierce took his first coaching job in 2014 when he was named head coach of Long Beach Poly High School in California. He served in that position for four years before joining Herm Edwards’ staff at Arizona State in 2018.
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