Who will end up taking over as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders? This is the question that countless football fans have on their mind with the regular season almost coming to a close. However, the Raiders coaching odds took a hit with the latest report that owner Mark Davis isn’t focused on making a decision in the near future. Instead, it’s looking like Davis is going to wait until the offseason. How do LV supporters feel about this?
Indeed, the general feeling among the fans is that Mark Davis putting his coaching search on the back burner could haunt Las Vegas for the long haul. While the Raiders are fresh off a win over the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving and the team’s confidence is riding high, the longer that Davis waits to try and land a long-term coach, the worse it’s going to be for the team moving forward.
The fact of the matter is that interim head coach Rich Bisaccia is not the long-term answer for this team. Yes, he has Las Vegas in the hunt to make the playoffs this year, but Davis has come out and said that he’s going to look for a veteran coach to take over things in Las Vegas after Jon Gruden resigned as Raiders head coach. If Davis waits and waits, some big names are going to be taken off the market.
According to NFL insider Jason La Canfora, a source tells him that Davis is more focused on his team making the postseason first. As things stand, Las Vegas is 6-5 on the season, right behind the 7-4 Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC West standings. It has been such an up and down season for Kansas City, that Las Vegas really could swoop in here and win the division.
While that’s nice, this team doesn’t look like a Super Bowl contender. According to the best rated online sportsbooks, the current NFL Vegas betting odds have Eric Bienemy and Brian Daboll as the favorites at +500, with folks racing to the NFL betting sites to try and get their wagers in. However, with so many different jobs opening up, those two could end up heading elsewhere.
Another thing to keep in mind for Davis is that Lincoln Riley leaving for Oklahoma has created a coaching mess all over the country. While this is a move that came from the college ranks, it now has the Sooners job open. There’s no denying that the Oklahoma head coaching job is a premier one in the United States. It could result in a Las Vegas target falling off the board as well.
As soon as the Oklahoma job was announced, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that Arizona Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury has become a main target for the program. Should the NFC West head coach leave and then sign with Oklahoma, then this would open up the Cardinals job. Then, maybe someone like Bienemy or Daboll would choose to go to the desert instead of Las Vegas.
Keep in mind that some other head coaching gigs in the NFL are about to open up too. The expectation is that the Chicago Bears will end up firing Matt Nagy. Nagy may have saved his job temporarily with the Thanksgiving Day win over the Detroit Lions. Having said that, the Bears won’t make the postseason and fans want him out as soon as humanly possible.
Once that Chicago job does open, several high-caliber people will want that job. This will prove to hurt Davis, as the Bears job might be considered better than the Las Vegas one to some, especially with the team drafting first-round pick Justin Fields last spring. From our chair, the longer Davis waits to make his decision, the more of a possibility that his top targets will end up getting offers elsewhere.
The question folks in Sin City have on their minds is will the Raiders end up making the playoffs? As things stand, Las Vegas looks primed to grab an AFC Wild Card spot, but as we mentioned above, they’re also in play to try and win the AFC West too. This all comes down to how the Chiefs end the season, but the oddsmakers over in Vegas are giving KC the big-time advantage.
Regardless of that, the Raiders grabbing a Wild Card spot will be massive for their head coaching search. It’d be a huge selling point for Davis too once that Bears gig opens up. Would a coach want to go to a postseason-calibre team like the Raiders, or head to the Bears where the team is in the middle of a massive rebuild? Going to the Raiders might be more appealing.
In a sense, perhaps that’s why Davis’ focus is more so on the team making the postseason, as he thinks that will only help him attract the kind of coach he wants. It’s going to be quite the gamble, but fittingly enough, we are talking about a team from Las Vegas after all here. Stay tuned to see how things shape out, but Davis will have plenty of pressure to get this next hire right.
