Several Las Vegas Raiders players have opened up about their feelings and frustrations while playing under former head coach Josh McDaniels.
Following a Week 8 road loss to the Detroit Lions, owner Mark Davis fired McDaniels and GM Dave Ziegler. During their short-lived tenure in Sin City, the McDaniels-Ziegler duo finished with a disappointing 9-16-0 record.
Raiders reporter Hondo S. Carpenter of FanNation from Sports Illustrated spoke to several Raiders players who expressed their frustrations with the now-former head coach. Apparently, it got so bad that players stopped “having fun” and didn’t want to go out and try to enjoy themselves in public.
“It didn’t bother Josh; he never left the building,” a player told Carpenter. “I don’t hate him, I like Josh, and I don’t think he was tone deaf, but I think he was clueless.”
One player sounded off on the widely reported meeting that McDaniels and the players had prior to his firing, where he encouraged them to open up their honest feelings.
“It wasn’t a we hate Josh meeting at all. I don’t think anyone hated him,” another player told Carpenter. “But he got his a** chewed, but so did everyone else. We all shared s—t that we didn’t like about coaches and players. Anyone saying it was all about Josh wasn’t in the meeting.”
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Another player stated that McDaniels “was not a bad dude”, but didn’t seem to know “how to operate outside his system.”
The Patriots named Champ Kelly the interim GM, with linebackers coach Antonio Pierce taking over as the interim head coach. The Raiders defeated the New York Giants 30-6 in their first game since the coach and GM change, moving to 4-5 on the year.
