Considering he already wore the all-black Air Force 1s, it’s only right for Las Vegas Raiders interim head coach Antonio Pierce to name-drop the Nike slogan emphatically during his mid-week press conference: Just Do It.
“Yeah, I feel like we’re leaving plays on the field. We do have plays open. We’ve got guys running down the field, and we’ve got some lanes to hit in the running game, and defensively, we’ve got some opportunities to get the quarterback on the ground or to make a play on the ball, for example, or in the special teams to take one to the house,” Pierce said when asked about the film not lying and what he saw on the game tape. “Well, you’ve got to do it. We’ve got to stop talking about it, and like I told our guys, at some point you have to be so determined and strain so hard to just do it.”
Channeling the shoe giant’s slogan is apt for Antonio Pierce. His Raiders are coming off a bye week and are in dire need of a win. At 5-7 and the team’s scant playoff hopes hinging on winning the final five games of the year along with getting help to get into the postseason dance, the time for talk is indeed over.
It’s time to do something—put up or shut up.
“Enough of talking about it; just do it. And we have the players that are capable of doing it, and we just have to continue to do it,” Pierce added. “It starts in practice. Like I’m going to ask them today, ‘Hey, look, when you get the ball, you’re taking that bad boy to the crib.’ We need to know what that end zone feels like a lot more, especially in the second half.”
While we can praise and criticize Antonio Pierce for a number of things in his short tenure as interim head honcho, the one thing that is without doubt is the refreshing honesty and transparency he has shown during press conferences.
The “just do it” mantra the 45-year-old coach exuded in his presser is a testament to that, and it oozed the same all-black AF1 energy he brought to the table early in his stint as the interim shot caller. For the uninitiated, when you support those specific sets of kicks, you’re ready for violence. Specifically, ready to do violent things in order to get the job done.
The time for talking is over, says Raiders HC Antonio Pierce
As emphatic as the stop talking and do it mantra is coming from Antonio Pierce, and it does come at an opportune time, that’s likely the expectation owner Mark Davis has with his interim coach. Pierce getting the Raiders roster to execute looms large on him landing the permanent gig, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see Davis put his team’s performance in the final five games under a microscope to help determine the direction in an all-important offseason. Pierce’s NFL future as head coach and Champ Kelly’s future tenure as a general manager hinge on how the Silver and Black do in the final five.
Like his predecessor before him, Pierce lamented player execution being lacking, which is great. To solve a problem, you’ve got to admit that there is one.
Now it’s time for Pierce to show he can not only identify the problem but is also the man who can remedy the situation. Josh McDaniels clearly couldn’t do that. And the proof that Pierce is the proper coach to fix that will be all over the final five games. If the Raiders execution is positive, the results will speak for themselves. On the flip side, if Las Vegas’ execution is amiss, that will be ever-present in the final slate, too, and the results will also speak volumes.
Pierce’s Raiders did start off extremely well against the Kansas City Chiefs before trailing off and losing 31-17. The Silver and Black did compete but couldn’t get any offensive consistency in a 20-13 loss to the Miami Dolphins the week prior. What does Pierce need and want to see his Raiders do to put forth a complete-game effort?
Looking at the NFL landscape
“I mean, just look at the National Football League. I mean, there’s a reason why you have winning teams and losing teams and teams in the middle of the pack,” Pierce began. “Who can maintain that winning stamina for 60 minutes, both mentally, emotionally, and physically? And for us, that’s just something we’re continuing to grow on and work on. It’s something that I put a big focus on for our coaching staff and our players this week, going forward. And it was no different in there, but that’s really an emphasis that I’m going to make for myself to make sure we do that.
“Now, is that going to be a lot of points and stops? I don’t know, but the execution needs to be better. Because if we can do it in the first half, we can do it in the second half. Now we’ve got to make adjustments and changes, and we understand that, but execution is what we all said, from coaching staff to our players, that we need to do a better job of and have that same juice and energy that we come out with in the first half.”
Juice and energy. That’s going to be imperative in the final five. From here on in, the Raiders are in must-win mode, and another loss erodes the miniscule playoff hopes the team has. But funnier things have happened over the course of an NFL season. Just ask about the 2021 rendition of the Raiders.
*Top Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images
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