HENDERSON, Nevada Antonio Pierce, the new coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, is not like other NFL head coaches.
Pierce doesn’t want to be handled, he appears like he could still play, and he defies expectations by trusting his instincts, which have made him a great player, a wonderful husband, and a superb father.
Pierce has spent his entire life being told why he is incapable of doing something, and each time, he internalises these beliefs and puts them to use in order to push himself further.
Rumours circulated that the Raiders offered Kliff Kingsbury a two-year contract because that is what Davis handed Pierce shortly after Earvin “Magic” Johnson spoke with Kingsbury and persuaded him to reject the Silver and Black.
False.
Even though the rumours were baseless, they started circulating on social media early this week. One player messaged me, saying, “This bullshit about AP only getting a two-year deal is disrespectful to Coach and Mark Davis.” You must make this s—t right.
I could have questioned Pierce, but I didn’t think it was right to put him in a situation where he had to talk about his contract because other coaches had previously denied doing so on the grounds that they believed it was done at the Raiders’ request.
Unauthorised by the team, Pierce, or the NFL, a league source with FIRST-hand knowledge of the deal told me: “I can tell you that it is not a two-year deal, and Mark Davis and Antonio Pierce came to an agreement on a contract that is fair to both parties and commensurate with the market.”
According to the league source, the Raiders and Pierce have not commented, but we now know the absurd rumours that led to Davis.
The simplest way to say it was this: “A two-year deal would have made Mark (Davis) look incredibly foolish and hurt his reputation, and it would have made Pierce look desperate, and his representation failed,” said another source, an AFC team official. That would not have been done by any party, and although some fans would have agreed to fit a story that makes no sense to me, nobody in the league would have bought into it.
Without any prior knowledge of the agreement, another NFL executive said to me, “Those rumours are so ignorant, I can’t even believe anyone would believe that.”
