The Raiders were dead when they jettisoned McDaniels. Pierce was able resurrect a team that had nothing to play for. Relating to the players and getting them to buy in matters. It will be interesting to see what direction the Davis Group takes for its HC position.
Were they really dead when they jettisoned McDaniels? They were 3-5. They're 4-3 since. Not a huge swing. Especially when you look at who they have beaten, and who they lost to.
For the 3-5 team, they had losses to the Bills, Stealers, and Lions. They had another loss to SD before they quit and had a bunch of injuries. The Bears loss was really the only bad one.
They had wins against the Broncos, Packers, and Patriots.
For the 4-3, they had losses to the Dolphins, Chiefs, and Vikings (getting shut out in the process).
They have wins against the Giants, Jets, a Chargers team without their top guys and who basically quit, and their one win against a decent team, was a struggling Chiefs squad who have now lost three in a row (and the Raiders were awful on offense yet again).
I'm not really sure the team is all that much different than they were. Maybe slightly better on defense (they were never terrible), but not looking so hot on offense most of the time.
