The Las Vegas Raiders swung a magnificent turnaround following a dramatic 2023 season and look to finally be making the right decision at the head of their coaching staff.  After substantial drama under former coach Josh McDaniels, Las Vegas managed to close the season with a 5-4 record under recent full time hire Antonio Pierce.  The biggest decision that Pierce did was reset the culture by benching McDaniels’ first lieutenant quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo which lead to solid play from backup quarterback Aidan O’Connell.  After his difficult task of righting the ship as an interim head coach has concluded, Pierce must now deal with the reality of a full time position in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas Raiders Head Coach Expected to Bring in Mentor

After Las Vegas announced that Pierce will be retained as the full time head coach of the franchise, thoughts have shifted toward the future toward who he would consider bringing in to round out his coaching staff.  While other newly hired head coaches have a struggle finding coaches they know that are willing and capable of walking in on day one and making major impacts as coordinators.  Pierce, on the other hand, has managed to surround himself with excellent talent as he was known to reach out to high profile coaches this season to take advice from an elite list of confidants whose resumes would certainly surprise you.

One of those coaches as it turns out is the favorite to take the defensive coordinator under Pierce.  That coach, who I am far too familiar with, is former Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis.  Pierce first worked with Lewis when he was the linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator at Arizona State University while Lewis was a special advisor to friend and former Sun Devils head coach Herm Edwards.  After the departure of former defensive coordinator Danny Gonzalez, Edwards decided to promote both Lewis and Pierce to become co-defensive coordinators in the COVID-19-shortened 2020 NFL Season.  In 2021, Lewis returned to his special advisor role and continued to mentor Pierce as the full time defensive coordinator.

Although Pierce left the Sun Devils in 2022 to join Las Vegas as a linebackers coach, Lewis clearly played a major role in the rapid advancement of Pierce through the system at Arizona State.  After serving in a key mentoring role for the former New York Giants star linebacker, Lewis was called in again to provide insight when Pierce was promoted to interim head coach last season.  It is clear that the two still share a close connection and are comfortable sharing coaching responsibilities

After that long history, it is widely expected that Lewis will be brought back to the NFL under pierce to become the defensive coordinator for Las Vegas.  Lewis is best known as being the long time head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals from 2003 to 2019 while becoming arguably the most successful head coach in Cincinnati history.  Lewis has specialized in putting elite defenses on the field that excel in suffocating offenses by restricting yardage.  Prior to his time in Cincinnati, Lewis played a key role in building the elite Ravens defense that won the Super Bowl in 2000.

Pierce showed excellent skills last season as a teambuilder when he took a downtrodden Raiders team and built the culture back up from a decimated position.  With an elite and experienced coaching staff around him, the sky is the limit in 2024.