The Raiders Players and Coaches Hold Second Confrontational Meeting In One Calendar Year

Where do I start with this? Where do I start with this? I have so many thoughts on this players-only meeting that happened between the Raiders and the coaches. Second one in about a year. Last one didn't go so well for the head coach. This one I have a feeling might go similarly, although I don't expect Antonio Pierce to be fired this season. That wouldn't solve any problems. That wouldn't set a good precedent. However, I have a lot of takes and I'm gonna potentially go scorched earth on a lot of people. But before we get into all that, let's just dive right in here. Let's read the article by Jonathan Jones, courtesy of CBSSports.com. The article titled Max Crosby, other Raiders expressed concerns with staff in open floor meeting after firings and the latest loss. The two and seven Las Vegas Raiders are enjoying a much-needed bye week after five straight losses. That happened fast, didn't it? But the team didn't go quietly into its time off. Sources tell CBS Sports that several Raider players, including team captain Max Crosby, we'll get into Max in a second, spoke openly in a players and staff meeting Monday addressing what they viewed to be as inefficiencies and deficiencies within the organization on a week to week basis. The hope for everyone involved is that the talks result in some positive change for the Raiders heading into the second half of the season. By Monday morning, Pierce was reworking his offensive staff. Scott Turner was previously the offensive coordinator in Washington, Carolina, would eventually be the interim OC, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Here's the meeting. After Monday's coaching meetings, I'm so sorry for this ad. I don't. After Monday's coaching meetings, the team met with the staff and the floor was open for anyone to speak their minds. Sound a little familiar? According to the sources present, a few themes emerged. Players had issues with the schedule not being efficient. There was a lack of organization and wasting time. There was a lack of discipline and accountability. One source described the meeting as ending uncomfortably for all parties, but to be sure, the meeting was nothing like the one between players and head coach Josh McDaniels exactly one year ago. All right. Okay. Where do I even begin? Obviously, not great to have to do this every single season. It's ironic because last year, Antonio Pierce was one of the position coaches who stepped up to seemingly have some words of wisdom, we'll say nicely to Josh McDaniels during the players, players only meetings, open floor staff meetings like the one that happened last year. This obviously doesn't bode well for Antonio Pierce and I want to start out with the Max Crosby of it all and I want to tread lightly because I know you're not allowed to say anything bad about Max Crosby or you're a hater and you're saying mean things about the best player in the league and the best player on our team. I love Max. I think he's easily the best player. I wouldn't trade him for all the money in the world and all the draft picks in the world, but we have to acknowledge that Max Crosby is partially the reason why Antonio Pierce is the head coach. Now, I'm not saying this to blame Max Crosby, but here's what I am saying. When you stick your neck out for somebody and then this stuff is not going well, you're going to feel partially responsible and you're going to have an open floor meeting and talk openly to the coach that you stuck your neck out for to say, get this stuff fixed. So the fact that this happened and the fact that I'm saying Max Crosby is partially responsible for us being in the situation, I'm not the one telling you that Max Crosby is by holding this meeting and trying to hold the people that he wanted in the positions of power accountable. He absolutely feels partially responsible for the way things have been going because he stuck his neck out for them and is now trying to get this stuff fixed by having this meeting. Now, here's the thing. Meetings like this happen for a lot of teams. This happens multiple times for us, right? Staffs and coaching staffs usually don't come out of this with everything fixed. Great coaches, good coaches don't need to be yelled at by their captains to get stuff fixed. Now, and the reason I keep saying stuff is because I don't want this video immediately demonetized. Now, is this a case of two years in a row, it's an absolute nightmare in the locker room? Maybe. Is this a case of the good players on our team not accepting the fact that we don't have a good roster right now and not accepting the fact that the record is who we are and it doesn't matter how well coached you are, we're just going to lose these games and Max Crosby's got this Michael Jordan mentality. Why are we undefeated? So he's like, well, I got to do something. Maybe. Maybe. But let's head back over to the screen recording and look at Mo Mo and early this season, Antonio Pierce called out unnamed Raiders players for making business decisions in week three. It was the home opener at that. Already not a good sign. Players reportedly are pointing back at the coaches for not preparing them and a lack of accountability. Most Raider games have reflected all the issues this season. This has the smell of a ---- show and the scent is getting stronger. Look, I was pro Antonio Pierce. I liked what he did at the end of last season, but when player staff open floor meetings happen, the writing is on the wall. Doesn't matter if me or you or Max thinks they deserve another year. If this stuff is happening, if they were preached a false bill of goods, we're going to make the playoffs, win the division. Getsy's our coordinator. PG's our coordinator. AP's our head coach. We're going to ride this thing with Minshew and Aiden. Devante's going to be an all pro. We're going to make the playoffs and then you go two and seven. You get blown up by the Panthers. You lose five straight. You fire Getsy. The players are done with you, dude. Doesn't matter if you grew up in Compton. Doesn't matter what you did when you were the interim. The players are done with you and I want to, I'm trying not to get angry at certain subsets of people right now, but I'm probably going to get extremely angry at them. So to calm me down from all that, let me tell you a few things real quickly. Thing one, 50 ish percent of you, we'll call it 60 percent of you are not yet subscribed to the channel, even though you continue to come back and keep watching. Interesting. If you keep watching, why don't you just hit that sub button? We're over halfway to 11,000 subscribers, which is a thing I never thought I would say. Hit that sub button. 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Link is in the description below. I don't see or hear anybody in the media that was pro Antonio Pierce tucking their tail between their legs and backtracking. I will be the first person to say when I'm wrong. I was wrong about Josh McDaniels. I was wrong about Antonio Pierce so far. Clearly I don't know right now what makes a good coach. That's on me. I gotta look in the mirror and admit that. But every single pundit, ESPN, Fox Sports, CBS, Bleacher Report, my employer, everybody said to Mark Davis, you made the mistake first time on not hiring Rich Basacia. All the players played their ass off for Rich Basacia and you sent him and Mike Mayock out the door. Even though I came on here and said it was not the right move to rehire Rich Basacia or to hire Rich Basacia because there are better coaching candidates out there. Maybe it wasn't Josh McDaniels but there were better people for the job. We had multiple games under Rich Basacia that we got destroyed. One drubbing by the Kansas City Chiefs. The reason why I thought the Antonio Pierce situation was different was because every single game last year win, lose, or draw was competitive. Rich Basacia couldn't say that. However, he got us to the playoffs. Had a better team in place. No doubt about it. AP did more with less. But every single person said to Mark Davis, don't make the same mistake. You gotta hire AP. Don't make the same mistake. You gotta hire AP. I'm not going to tell you that rich business owners get pressured into doing things maybe they shouldn't do. But ask the Dallas Cowboy fans right now if they're comfortable with the contract that Dak Prescott signed. Because to me, and I know you've got to have a succession plan in place, but to me it felt like Jerry Jones was pressured into giving Dak all this money and now they're tied to him and he consistently gets injured and doesn't show up when the lights are brightest in the playoffs. Right? Sometimes the pressure from the players on the team and the media and everyone saying do this, do this, do this, don't make the same mistake again gets to you. Doesn't matter if you have zero dollars in your bank account or all the money in the world. When you've got so much riding on this and every single person said don't make the same mistake, hire AP. So what did he do? He gave you what you wanted. He gave me what I wanted. Now the difference is I made a video saying there are other options out there and I was torn because I thought AP was the right guy but I was torn. I brought up Jim Harbaugh. I brought up Mike Rabel. I brought up Bill Belichick. I brought up Ben Johnson. By the way, I'm still bringing up Ben Johnson. That's the difference between someone like me who runs this channel and someone that's on First Take that says if you don't hire Antonio Pearce it's a disgrace and you made the same mistake with Rich and now you're making the same mistake here. And guess what those people are saying now that Antonio Pearce has proven so far not to be a good head coach? Nothing. They're not saying anything. You know why? Because the Raiders are irrelevant this season. The reason they're irrelevant is because of terrible coaching. So you wanted to talk about them all off season about how they should have hired this guy and now that they stink you don't want to come on the air and say maybe it was a mistake for all of us to say the same thing because that's not going to get your views. Why would you talk about a two and seven team even though you're partially responsible? And I get it. It's Mark Davis who makes the decision. Why are you blaming everybody else who said this? Because people sometimes don't think before they say something. You have to take a step back. It's not all about what you feel in the moment. That's why you have the conversation with Jim Harbaugh, with Mike Ravel, with Ben Johnson. And that's why at the end of this season you evaluate. You talk to the players but you make the best decision with the top brass. Max Crosby, Devante Adams, Josh Jacobs, Jacoby Myers, Brock Bowers are not talent evaluators. They are not professional interviewers. They do not have Super Bowl championship. Tom Brady does. Tom Telesco was in draft rooms that drafted Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck and Justin Herbert. These guys need to be in charge of who the next coach is moving forward. It's them. It's Richard Seymour. It's them. Not the players, not the media, not the fans. Don't let me pressure you into hiring Ben Johnson if you don't think that's the right guy. I'm just tired of people screaming from the rooftops that we want this, we want this and then it happens and then we're all quiet about it. I was wrong about AP. So was every other national media pundit and yet they aren't held accountable for anything. So from here on out you evaluate Scott Turner and Norv Turner. Can you keep them for the future? You talk to AP. What was your fault? What was the players fault? What can we do better? If you think you can run it back, if you can find a new hot offensive coordinator with AP and he's the best person available, you hire him based off of merit. This was a trial run. So far it's not going well. Can it improve or is Mike Brable or Cliff Kingsbury or Ben Johnson or Bill Belichick or Bobby Slowik a better choice? Because if there's a better choice out there, you just go get them. Okay? Just do it. Do what you think is right. Don't do what you think we want to do. I did not expect to get that angry. I'll be the first person to admit that. I guess I should be the only person to admit that and I didn't feel like there's going to be a lot of cuts in that either. I felt like I was going off the cup and it was a great performance by me. Not a performance, I mean like I believed it all. Just saying it's going to be helpful for the editor. Anyway, thank you so much for watching. Am I wrong? Did I get a little too angry there? Or was I speaking facts? Was I preaching to the choir? Was I yelling too loudly? Comment below, let me know. Join the Discord. Link is in the description below. Join the Patreon. Please be sure to subscribe. It's free. I don't want to charge you. I love you guys. I'll see you next time.