Some people are fans of the Raiders, and we'll deal with you later. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Raiders. This 2024 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here
Your Team: The Las Vegas Raiders. AhhhhHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!
Your 2023 record: 8-9, and that's your sixth-best record in the last two decades, with three of those better seasons being 8-8. By the standards, this was a near-orgasmic experience, especially when you note that they won three of their last four games to get there. But that's not really the reason last year was a triumph. It's because Mark Davis tore himself from the one thing that makes him happy other than P.F. Chang's—his WNBA team—to fire Josh McDaniels. He is now one of those rarest of failed supervisors, being fired in the middle of his second season in both his stops with the players ready to chokeslam him through the hood of his car.
The first upside to this was that interim replacement Antonio Pierce won the locker room over by not being McDaniels. The second is that after the Broncos fired McDaniels in 2009, they made the playoffs each of the next five seasons and won the Super Bowl in year five. They haven't made the playoffs since, but that's Denver's problem. The precedent is there.
The third, though, is that the Raiders still make no sense from week to week, so your despair and your euphoria each have the lifespan of a gnat. Quick, name the last team to be shut out at home, 3-0, and then win, 63-21, four days later. Let us help you with that: stop thinking. The 1966 Washingtons lost to Cleveland 14-3 and then beat the Giants 72-41 the next week, but none of you were alive then and your normal basis for reference is three days ago.
But this sub-sporadic behavior is very much the norm for a team that has won more than three games in succession only three times in the last 21 years, or since the last time they were in a Super Bowl. In fact, that Super Bowl, which they lost to Tampa Bay by four touchdowns, is the demarcation line for the Raiders in that before it, they were merely a team whose best days were behind them, and since then their worst days have followed.
We'll get to that later. The point is, the Raiders suddenly decided to become interesting, albeit in their own bizarre way, and with nothing to lose except more of their already desiccated reputation they played harder and better, and enter their 22nd post–Super Bowl year believing that they could defy gravity. Being a Raider requires such delusional thinking, and being a Raider fan requires the same.
Your coach: Antonio Pierce. This would have been so much easier had McDaniels not gotten his ass canned after Week 8, because the record would not have been 8-9 but 5-12, and a 5-12 Raider team is just the norm. But the Raiders have this way of lurching toward change for change's sake, and while McDaniels needed firing, it only proved that he never needed hiring. Davis has only ever wanted one coach in his life, and that one went all J.D. Vance with his emails and was terminated.
That was then, though, and the demands for Pierce were already deafening when he was handed the gig just in time to play the ridiculous Giants and pathetic Jets at home in successive weeks. Those went well enough that he survived the three-game losing streak that followed, and got the gig for good, which for the Raiders is two years.
Like we said, Pierce's ability to not be McDaniels helped him in the short run, but Tom Cable got an early bounce by not being Lane Kiffin, too, and that turned out as you would expect. Pierce inherits a decent defense which allowed the fewest number of points since the 2002 Super Bowl season, but the offense was a steaming disaster, that game against the Chargers notwithstanding. Davis wanted McDaniels to make his offense magical, but all he did was remind us that offensive coordinators can do that if they're smart enough, don't act like assholes, and are left alone. McDaniels came to freshen up his rep, and all he did was bury himself by pretending that he was actually Bill Belichick.
That, though, is the Raiders' enduring issue: They get whatever coach is handy after an office-wide search and then create a roster blindfolded. When Al ran the team, that was a given since Al ran the team, but Mark's skill set, such as it is, does not include football acumen, so this is not a "Trust me, I know what I'm doing" situation. Pierce in that way has only one thing on his resume that we can count on for the moment: he was there. Everything else has to be taken on faith, and with the Raiders, that's the best way to have your car repossessed.
Your quarterback: For the moment, Aidan O'Connell, again because he has the good fortune not to be someone else. In this case, neither Derek Carr nor Jimmy Garoppolo. He cast little enough shadow other than that Chargers game, and nobody believes he will hold the job long once they get something other than Gardner Minshew, Anthony Brown, or Carter Bradley to back him up.
This sort of doesn't matter except for the drama surrounding Davante Adams, who either does or doesn't want to be a Jet, and in either event is trapped by a team doomed to disappoint. He's just one more wideout the Raiders thought could make their offense go and didn't, and now that Josh Jacobs is a Packer, Adams will be willing to crawl to New York, and will only rue that choice when he realizes that Aaron Rodgers is now a caricature of what he will be after football: a cranky old bastard who talks to himself in hopes that someone will try to eavesdrop on him. Oh, sorry, we wandered off the topic there. Aidan O'Connell—oh, never mind. I wanted to make this a captivating section but be fair here, he isn't exactly Kirk Cousins ... or Jacoby Brissett, for that matter. He's just the guy who has the job now.
What's new that sucks: Well, the new general manager is Tom Telesco, whose specialty was ramming his head through the drywall of his office for a decade while with the Chargers. The Chargers had expectations and some talent, too, which is why people gave Telesco credit that the record did not exactly support. He finally got canned when it became clear that the Chargers would always be the Chargers, and he went to a team with exactly the same M.O., only worse. His most noticeable move was to watch running back Josh Jacobs leave because Jacobs got hurt and had spent too many years developing that been-here-too-long-to-know-anything-but-despair attitude that eventually kills all veteran Raiders.
The new lead running back is Zamir White, and while it's unfair to him to say that he sucks, he only really got a look late in the year when Jacobs got hurt. His two years with Vegas have been about waiting for Jacobs to leave, and now that he has, he has to hold off Alexander Mattison to keep the gig long enough to realize that he too will be better off on another team. The draft brought tight end Brock Bowers, but until Telesco figures out how to induce Maxx Crosby to play on both sides of the ball, their annual training camp "people piss us off because they say mean things about us" performance will sound just as stale for the foreseeable future. Truth is, there isn't enough new because the Raiders are going to need way more time to let Telesco change the Raiders at the subatomic level. The bet here is that he won't last nearly long enough. I mean, he's 51 years old, and nobody sees him lasting in the job for the 20 years it would take.
What has always sucked: Just put it on a tee, why don't you? Coming off a non-winning record? Yep, for the 19th time in 21 years. New coach offering hope to the bereft? Check, for the 13th time since that Super Bowl. Angry Raiders fans fulminating about haters and lack of respect and the glory days three cities ago? Check. They are a whack-a-mole game with one head, a slow motor, and a mallet worn down to the handle.
They have the second-worst winning percentage in the NFL since their last Super Bowl appearance (Cleveland). So if you're talking failure in bulk, well, you've come to the right window. Your team may suck, but nobody's team sucks in any pursuit quite like this one, and if you think we're ignoring their glory days, well, we've gone back the life of a human adult, 21 years. Surely by now they'd have something other than this charnel house to show for it. We've given them enough rope to cover any benefit of the doubt and, well, check that thing hanging in the rafters for your answer.
Nope, this is the vacation home at the earth's core, a fetid heap of painted-over dry rot whose citizens prefer anything to this including the Cirque du Merde stage show at the bus station, and only hesitates on the question if you include the Oakland Athletics. We used to refer to their fan base as "long-suffering" and "unfairly punished," but how much more evidence do you hyenas need to find another team to support? We thought you were better than this, we really did.
What might not suck: Make this "does not suck," and you have Crosby, the man with two X's in his first name to match the number of X's over the eyes of quarterbacks he has hit. Fun to watch, horrible to block, and in all ways the one Raider who is not like all the others in that we both know him and like watching him play. Everyone else is part of their modern history—anonymous, and just passing through.
HEAR IT FROM RAIDERS FANS!
JC:
JUST WIN BABY was 40 fuckin years ago. Forty...
Steven:
I never had a football team growing up, but my best friend was a Raiders fan and they were about to play in the Super Bowl, so I jumped on.
That same friend ended up cheating on his wife. I'm not sure why I bring that up, but it sure feels like the two things are related.
Matt:
The only thing this team is good for is inner chaos and outward mediocrity. Every year, I try to convince myself that Mark Davis is one of the good owners, but I can't keep lying to myself. The best I can hope for during another 8-9 season is a player not livestreaming his mental breakdown. Something called a "Gardner Minshew" is the quarterback.
Luis:
My now fiance says that if we started dating during football season, we probably wouldn't have passed the talking stage of our relationship because of how I am during games.
Jake:
Our team last year became the final nail in the coffin of Bill Belichick's mystique. McDaniels fucked up so bad we had to start sprinkling 2007 Giants around the offices like air fresheners to get rid of the Patriots stink. Our fans are excited by our new head coach despite his one and only qualification being "Is not Josh McDaniels." We were happy to jettison Derek Carr and now remember what life is like when you don't even get average QB play and it's scary out here. We're about two years away from watching Maxx Crosby lift the Vince Lombardi trophy for some other franchise after he finally gets sick of our shit and asks for a trade to a real team. The highlight of our year was the rock bottom moment for the eventual Super Bowl champions.
Chris:
I lost a brother 13 years ago - he died far too young. He lived out in the Bay area for some time and became a Raiders fan. Our hometown Browns were defunct or barely participating in the NFL at this time. Since his passing, I have carried on the tradition of Raiders fandom.
The silver lining to my brother's passing is that he left behind a group of loyal friends that I've stayed in contact with. Every year we meet and have dinner in my brother's honor. We all lost a brother, and I know they are with me in that experience.
In 2023, we met for dinner shortly after Josh McDaniels's Halloween firing. The highlight of the evening was when one of his friends looked up the story of the Halloween Firing on his phone and said "Did you know that Mark Davis eats P.F. Chang's for lunch every day?"
The table erupted in laughter. I could easily imagine me brother there, laughing along. That quote summarizes the Raiders franchise perfectly.
Since the 2003 super bowl, this has been both the highlight of 20-plus years of Raider fandom, and also one of the most important experiences in my grief process. It is impossible to understate the healing effect of Josh McDaniels leaving your franchise.
Submissions for the NFL previews are now closed. Next up: New Orleans Saints.
