Antonio Pierce Must Prove He's A True Head Coach Against Denver

A question I post to the nation, wherever you may be watching this video, is this. What is better than one must-win game early on in the season? Two must-win games. That's right, folks. This is a game... I mean, we just gotta win if we want to beat the Denver Broncos and get into the playoffs. It starts this Sunday in Denver. Sean Payton, two-game winning streak. I mean, I say that like they've been gangbusters, right? Defense has been good, and we're gonna get into how good the Broncos have been defensively. The film, all that stuff. But right now, I want to focus a little bit on Antonio Pearce. And as I get into my screen recording here, you're going to see just what I want to break down because it's very important. This game might be the most important game of Antonio Pearce's young coaching career thus far. So a lot of discussion has been going on about this Devontae Adams trade. Max Crosby not showing up for the game, blah, blah, blah. There's been a lot of people saying Antonio Pearce has seemingly lost the locker room. Obviously, our boy Michael Lombardi has been talking a lot about the Raiders ever since we fired his son last year. Antonio Pearce was a big part of that, so he's got no love lost for this new regime. I'm not going to give any credence to what Michael Lombardi said, but somebody did ask Momo on Twitter, do you agree with Lombardi that Antonio Pearce has lost control of the locker room? And if you guys don't know who Momo is, he's my fellow Bleacher Report brother that talks about the Raiders on Bleacher Report. He's an insider for the Raiders. He does a lot of good. Somebody asked him that, and his response was, where is it? Right here. I want to see how the Raiders look against the Denver Broncos. That could tell us a lot. I don't disagree with that. I do believe this game for the Las Vegas Raiders is very important, obviously, for playoff implications, for tiebreakers, for division standings, all that good stuff. But it's important to see how the team responds to yet another bump in the road. Under Antonio Pearce, and look, I don't blame Antonio Pearce for what happened. This feels more like Josh McDaniel's Dave Ziegler spillover than a complete failure with Antonio Pearce in terms of managing the Devontae Adams situation. But we weren't that aggressive in terms of getting a quarterback that Devontae would want. I've seen some people saying that. I think Chris Simms said Devontae Adams signed off on the Derek Carr benching. That would feel out of character. And I have nothing bad to say about Devontae. When he was here, he gave it his all, in my opinion, and he was a great wideout. He had to deal with a lot of BS. Although there are people that will say he kind of fought his way out of a great situation in Green Bay to get what he wanted, and now he's kind of doing the same thing. It's a little NBA-ish with Devontae, so I don't love that. But I do think while he was here on the Raiders, he gave it his all. Hondo Carpenter, this is via Raidersbeat.com, discussed how the team looked after losing to the Carolina Panthers. This article starts by saying the Raiders were embarrassed last week by the Lowly Panthers, and they'll try to bounce back. This is, again, before the Browns game. Uncle Hondo thinks a win will be in the cards for the Raiders, and he was right. Here's the quote that Hondo used to describe the locker room after the Panthers lost. I think his best leadership is having since the moment the game concluded, Carpenter said of Pierce, Las Vegas, Raiders podcast, I don't want to give too much away, but last week in the locker room, he made it very clear to his team what he had felt. Then he walked down to the podium, made it more clear. He made it clear all week to them what the expectations were. I talked to some of the guys this week. They could have very easily pointed fingers, but they didn't. It's not in their character. And I'm a mouthpiece for the organization. I don't speak for the organization. I'm not paid by Mark Davis. The easy role for me to take after the game play to down six guys is that they're going to lose. That's not what I think. So, you know, Hondo made a prediction that the team was going to bounce back, and they looked like they bought into what Antonio Pierce was saying, especially down guys like Max and Devontae. And now if you look at Sports Illustrated, they have an article that came out 16 hours ago. This is a Thursday night that I'm recording this. Antonio Pierce still slowly but surely changing the Raiders culture. Now, before I get into this article right here and my opinion on what I think about Antonio Pierce thus far, I just want to show you guys something here. Over the last 28 days, about 65% of the people that are watching are not yet subscribed. Let's change that. If you're watching this video, why don't you hit that subscription button? We're trying to get to 10,000. And by the way, if you are subscribed, about 13% of you are subscribed and have all notifications turned on for the channel, which means you click that bell to get my video sent directly to you on your phone. But only 8% of you have those subscription notifications turned on and YouTube notifications enabled on your phone. So go ahead and go into those settings and check those out to make sure you have those properly equipped. Join the Patreon as well if you're interested. The link is in the description below. Here's what it looks like. You get all my videos early, ad-free. You get your name at the end of the credits. You get all this good stuff. If you go over to the membership tab here, it's $5 a month or $10 depending on what you actually want, you know, benefits-wise. And the good thing that I just started here in the $10 tier is monthly YouTube advice from me. If you're trying to start your own channel, whether that's for the Raiders or any other thing, my first video is up right now and it's discussing my equipment. They're going to get in-depth on editing, SEO, content creation, all that good stuff. So if you're interested in that, join the link in the description below. Patreon.com slash AllAboutRaiders. Let's get back into AP and this article about how we are changing the culture slowly but surely. Before I get into this article, I just want to say AP has gone 7-6 in his first 11 games as the coach. That's better than John Gruden was through his first 11 games. That's better than Joshua Daniels definitely was. That's better than Jack Del Rio was. And that's tying Rich Visagia. The difference though, and I've been saying this for a while, between Rich Visagia and Antonio Pierce's teams is that there were some games we played where we were just non-competitive with Rich Visagia. We've had one with AP in the Panthers game, but that's the only one. Against the Chiefs, we lost like 40-9 against Rich Visagia. Against the Chiefs, under Antonio Pierce, we've been competitive in every single game we've played. And by the way, and by the way, if you clicked on this video ready to watch some film, we're going to do that as well. So just hang in there for the film. The Las Vegas Raiders have worked hard over the last year to turn around the culture of their team and locker room. Coach Pierce continues to cultivate change within the organization. So there are some quotes here that Antonio Pierce said in his press conference that they're using to show that we have changed the culture. Oh, six starters out, many of whom were starters. That doesn't make any sense. You get the idea. This forced Antonio Pierce and the Raiders to lean on young guys. Not only do those players play well against the Browns, but many were influential in the team's win, including Charles Snowden and Isaiah Polamau. Pierce believes it is a testament to how talented the Raiders are and the culture that has been established since last season. Here's the quote. I think it speaks volumes for the culture that we set. We said the best players will play and they will get opportunities just to make the most of them. And he's doing that. It started on the practice squad, giving guys a hell of a look. An opportunity comes up, he's ready to play. He's prepared. He goes into special teams. He does that. And he's talking about Isaiah Polamau. He's talking about Charles Snowden. I do believe the culture is there. And I do believe in Antonio Pierce. There's a lot swirling around. I didn't like that he did the whole Instagram thing. That's a little childish. But again, he's a young head coach in this league and I think there's a lot to learn from that. Now, before we get into the Denver Broncos, because we've got a lot of stats here to cover, I want to hop into a couple of Alexander Madison's Amir White plays. I've only got two pulled up here because this is a microcosm of everything that happened with the Cleveland Browns game, in terms of us being able to run the football successfully. And this is why I do think Alexander Madison is going to get more reps. So if I click play on this play right here, you're going to see a nice little run from Alexander Madison where he kind of breaks it to the right side. He breaks the tackle. He puts his head down and he gets a first down. Now, I do believe that was on this third and nine that they called this run, which is a gutsy play from Luke Getzey. The offensive line does a great job blocking here, but I want to make a point to show that Alexander Madison right here could have just maybe bounced it to the left and got tackled by the defender right here. Stuffed it up the middle like Zamir White did, but he showed patience on this play, waited for Brock Bowers to come over here, and waited for the hole to open up to bounce it. And I think that patience is something that Zamir White is lacking. Look at the patience, the stutter step. Did you see the ah, ah, ah? Did you see the little stutter there? Look, he goes one, two, three, gone, right? There's a patience there. It's like a Le'Veon Bell, like wait for the blockers to develop before he hits the open hole. And that's why I believe Alexander Madison might be the guy going forward. Now, this is a good play by Zeus here, right? But there's no hesitation. It's just like the hole's there. I got to go. And it's great blocking, right? And JPJ is the focal point here of this play. JPJ is an absolute dog, dude. Look at him push this guy right to the left. Look at him just clear the hole here. Get out of my way. But this is what Zamir White needs. This is like power up the gut. The hole's wide open. I could run through that. You can run through that. And then he just runs up the middle. And because he's a big, strong, fast running back, he looks good. But I think that's the difference between Zamir and Alexander is that Alexander just seems to have a little bit more patience than that's what we need. Last thing we need to go over here is the Denver Broncos because their offense is just terrible. Might be worse than us. Points per game, 28th. Yards per game, 27th. Points per play, 29th. Yards per play, 29th. Touchdowns a game, one. 31st in the league. Bad. I mean we're bad too, but that's bad. But check out the defense that they have here. Opponents points per game, they're third. Opponents yards per game, second. Points per play, third. Opponents yards per play, first. Opponents third down, third. I mean this is crazy talent. This is better than us. We need to find a way to run the ball. Now what's interesting about the Denver defense is if you come down here, obviously their defense is pretty good. But opponents rush yards per game, 4.1. Okay, that's eighth in the league. However, that's something that we could maybe attack there. If we get four and four and four, that's what? More than 10. That's 12. We need to be able to run the ball to win this game. And I don't want to just say, oh, this is the Denver Broncos and they only scored 10 points. We're going to blow them over. I just wanted to prove a point that their defense is very good. So what do we need to win this game? We need Gardner Minshew to protect the football, which he really hasn't been doing. And we need to pound the rock. Luke Getzey, you got to find a way to be able to continue the success you had last week. And this is, again, a gut check type game for coach Antonio Pierce. Can we go into Denver, go to three and two before a couple of winnable games against the Sears and the Rams? That's huge for us. This is a game where will Devontae Adams be a distraction, lack thereof of Devontae Adams be a distraction, or can Antonio Pierce coach his way through yet another obstacle to get this thing headed even further into the right ship? I don't think what I just said made any sense just now, but you get the picture. Because, again, we got two winnable games against the Steelers and the Rams, but those are games that we could also lose. So maybe if we split those games, win this one, right? We go to four and three. That's completely manageable as well. And then we got the Kansas City Chiefs. So this is a huge game. This is a game where you got to win if you want to find a way to get this scrappy little team into the playoffs. What say you? Comment below your thoughts. Hit that like button. Give me your predictions of what the Raiders game is going to look like. What's the final score? Do we win? Do we lose? Join the Discord. Link is in the description below. It is free. It's a big group chat. We're all talking about stuff. Join that Patreon. Like I said, patreon.com slash allaboardraiders. And please be sure to subscribe. It's free. I'll throw no charge to you. I love you guys. Don't see you next time.