After two days of soul-searching and contemplation, I, the Great Raiderdamus, would like to publicly issue the following statement on the dismissals of former Las Vegas Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels and former Raiders general manager Dave Ziegler:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…
This concludes my statement.
In the early 1980’s, a young Axl Rose arrived in Los Angeles from somewhere in the Midwest, Indiana, Illinois, or some other Big Ten state people always try to get away from. Upon getting off the bus, Axl was greeted by a crazed homeless gentleman, who yelled at Axl the words that would become part of the song for which he is best known: “Do you know where you are? You’re in the jungle, baby! And you’re gonna die!”
Raiderdamus: A Return To The “Raider Way”
The implication was that young Axl was not prepared for what he was about to experience. To his credit, Mr. Rose adapted quickly and came to personify the sleazy Los Angeles lifestyle and image of his era. But there are those who are unprepared and do not adapt, and they die in the jungle—people like Josh McDaniels and Dave Ziegler.
McDaniels should have been able to learn from the mistakes he made in Denver, where he alienated the entire locker room in pursuit of doing things “his way”. His way, of course, was to jettison a perfectly good quarterback in Jay Cutler and replace him with Kyle Orton and Tim Tebow. McDaniels’ plan was to win the first six games he coached and then go 6-20 over the remainder of his time in Denver. His way was to reveal himself as the sniveling, arrogant little rat bastard he is. A lesson many people learn far too late in life is, “When people show you who they are, believe them.”
Josh McDaniels showed us who he was. He, like all the rest of Bill Belichick’s sycophants, is someone whose system only works when Tom Brady is running it. Charlie Weis is a failure. Romeo Crennel failed. Matt Patricia, failure. Bill O’Brien is a failure unless he’s working for Nick Saban. Eric Mangini, failure. Al Groh, failure. Josh McDaniels, failure. Adam Gase, failure. Pat Shurmur, failure. Dan Quinn, failure as a head coach, is a very good defensive coordinator.
Belichick’s disciples fare better in college, where guys like Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher have had plenty of success and won national titles. Josh McDaniels should go coach at Directional Carolina so he can get fired from somewhere without doing too much damage to a fanbase that cares.
The Raiders are back…
Mark Davis is not his father. Al Davis would have fired McDaniels last year after the Rams game and used an overhead projector to illustrate just what a d*ckless little goblin McDaniels is. Al Davis was like Ice Cube; he would scream at you while he shot you. Mark Davis is like Eazy-E. He is more laid-back and smiling, and then, when you least expect it, he strikes. Mark Davis fired McDaniels and Ziegler on Halloween night, in the middle of the night, the way the Colts moved out of Baltimore. We cannot be certain that McDaniels and Ziegler were not wearing festive Halloween costumes when they were fired.
I can just imagine McDaniels and Ziegler, dressed as Batman and Superman, standing in Mark Davis’s office while he does his best Vince McMahon impression, “You’re ffffffffffired!”
Mark Davis isn’t the doofus with the bowl-cut people think he is. The man is a straight gangster, and he’s paying over $100 million to coaches to not coach the Raiders because he’s not afraid to fire people when it’s called for. Mark Davis isn’t a rich real estate magnate who doesn’t care if his team wins or loses. He cares as much as anyone, and he’ll fire you, me, and your grandma on Christmas morning if he thinks it will help the Raiders win.
A team coached by ChatGPT could have beaten the Bears…
A team with focus could have beaten the Lions. A gang of old ladies with hip replacements could have beaten the Chargers. But Josh McDaniels did not beat any of those teams because he’s not a leader and he can’t get his players up for a game they have a three-hour plane ride to get to. Raiders players will say nice things about McDaniels, like how he didn’t do anything wrong, that he was a good leader, et cetera. Don’t believe a word of it. They are professionals, and they know that saying the things that I say, like “Josh McDaniels sucks” and “Josh McDaniels was given enough rope to hang himself,” would simply bring undue attention and drama to a team trying to heal from McDaniels’ presence.
What you should instead pay attention to is what the locker room looks like now. Men are happy, men are smiling, and men are excited. Men are playing hoops together. Some people in life suck the fun and joy out of everything, and when they leave the room, their negative energy noticeably goes with them, and the mood is lightened. You should avoid spending time with people like that.
Josh McDaniels is a person like that.
He’s a weasel and an *sshole school principal. He’s a highway patrolman in a small southern town, looking to catch you speeding in July at dusk so he can screw with you and make your life hell because he’s bored. McDaniels is a person who posts on Facebook that he hates drama and then goes out to cause as much of it as he can.
It’s clear that McDaniels is an intelligent man, but that doesn’t help him because he doesn’t recognize his limitations. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, and he thinks he knows everything. Derek Carr likes to be audible at the line. The hell he does. I’m Josh McDaniels, and I say no audibles because I know better than the guy who’s been the quarterback of this team for nine years.
Did you see Jimmy G audible once this season? Because I didn’t.
Jimmy knows the rules, and the Raiders were often in garbage play calls and situations because McDaniels thinks he is a mastermind and won’t adapt to reality. When you are getting out-schemed and won’t change, there’s a phrase for that: “The game has passed you by”. McDaniels’ system worked with Tom Brady because Brady told McDaniels to go f*ck himself, and he did things the Patriot Way, which, as it turns out, is whatever Tom Brady says it is. Now that Brady is retired, McDaniels’ system will never work again.
And so the Raiders have a new coach, Antonio Pierce. One of the first things he told us in his introductory press conference was that he is from Compton; he was rolling with the Raiders in the LA Coliseum, rolling with NWA when they wore Raider hats. Even though he never played for the Raiders, he is a Raider. It’s in his blood and in his DNA. We are all about to witness the strength of street knowledge.
Raiderdamus: Revisiting the Old Raiders…
Combine this with the Raiders releasing a promotional video with Marshawn Lynch talking about the Raider Way, and we can see that Davis is calling for a return to form. Toughness. Discipline. No b*tchassedness. The time for the Patriot Way is over. A return to the Raider Way is upon us. The Raiders are not the sort of team that kisses babies and prays after touchdowns. They are the team that will wear a cast on their forearm and club you over the head as a pass rush move.
The Raiders will clothesline you and stomp your a** out until the whistle stops blowing. They will hit you until you stop trying. The Raiders are legitimately frightening to play with because they’re faster and better than you, and they won’t stop until you’re dead. That’s the Raider Way. To instill fear, to intimidate, and to bend the rules, break the rules, and blatantly cheat if that’s what it takes to win. Because nobody remembers if you got a personal foul. They remember if you won.
Nobody would have cared if Josh McDaniels was a dumb*ss if he had won. But he didn’t, and now he’s gone. Because to build an organization, you have to get great coaches and great players, and you have to tell them one thing. Just win, baby.
*Top Photo: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports