Mike Mayock reveals move that kept Raiders from being 'high-level playoff team'

The last couple of seasons for the Las Vegas Raiders have not gone well and the 2024 season is off to a rough start. It's surprising to see the team fall this far after being a promising playoff team in 2021.

What may have set the Raiders back was a grave mistake from owner Mark Davis. Instead of giving the head coaching job to Rich Bisaccia after he led the team to the playoffs in 2021, he decided to move on and hire Josh McDaniels.

Former general manager Mike Mayock believes that the Raiders would've been much better off had they kept Bisaccia.

"I’m entitled to my opinion, and I believe that Raiders team would have been a high-level playoff team the last couple of years had they kept Rich Bisaccia on board," Mayock said OutKick’s "Don’t @ Me With Dan Dakich."

"The players gravitate to [Bisaccia] not because he’s easy on them, but because he has their backs at all times, and he loves them just as much off the field as he does on the field. He’s one of the few coaches I’ve ever seen that can kick a guy's a** for three hours, and that guy will be in his office afterward talking about issues with his girlfriend."

In hindsight, the Raiders 100% made a mistake by replacing Bisaccia with McDaniels. Would he still be the head coach? That's hard to know but he certainly couldn't have been worse than McDaniels. While Bisaccia didn't bring any upside as a playcaller, he clearly knew how to lead players.

It's hard to know for sure how successful he would've been. No other team has made him an offer to be a head coach. He would've been very dependent on his coordinators and keeping Greg Olson and Gus Bradley probably would've been a recipe for failure. However, the Raiders are just doing the interim head coach to full-time head coach experience right now with Antonio Pierce when they should've done it back in 2022.