Antonio Pierce knows his Raiders’ issues; why can’t his staff remedy them?
Antonio Pierce has done plenty of that.
Before his Las Vegas Raiders’ Week 6 matchup with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Pierce noted the team was going back to the fundamentals of football to remedy the woes the team is experiencing during one of his media sessions. This was to combat the mountainous amount of missed tackles the Silver and Black have amassed, costly turnovers, and uncharacteristic penalties the team experienced.
Despite Pierce’s braggadocios claim of a reset in practices to reboot drive, focus, and mentality leading up to the home game against the Steelers, the Raiders flopped. His players did Pierce no favors in the 32-13 loss to Pittsburgh — almost like the group didn’t even hear what the coach told the media (maybe they didn’t).
The defense still whiffed on tackles (Las Vegas has a total of 61, according to Pro Football Reference which leads the league), turnovers were again costly (two fumbles and an interception; the Raiders are minus-10 in the takeaway/turnover game with 12 turnovers and only two takeaways), and penalties killed drives while extending Steelers’ drives.
“It starts with discipline,” Pierce said in the post game press conference. “We had four penalties, but they were at critical moments. The turnover thing is embarrassing. We don’t respect the ball enough, so we don’t even deserve a chance to put ourself into position to win.”
Pierce knows what the issues are, but why can’t he and his coaching staff remedy them?