The Raiders head coaching and general manager job is better than you think it is (probably)
Let’s get two things out of the way first:
I am not a Raiders fan (I support the Chiefs and Ravens - don’t worry about that). I’ve been to Las Vegas several times (never been to Oakland) and I love the town, but I don’t root for the Raider franchise or care that much what they do.
As it stands, the Raiders have no clear path to either of the top two consensus rookie QBs (Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders), there isn’t some great QB available for trade that we know of, and it doesn’t appear to be shaping up that a truly difference making QB will be available in free agency either (hardly any ever are). So the Raiders biggest handicap vs many of the other head coaching and general manager openings is a real one.
The head coach and general manager openings on Black Monday were as follows:
Head Coach
Chicago Bears - filled by Ben Johnson
New England Patriots - filled by Mike Vrabel
New York Jets - Open
Jacksonville Jaguars - Open
Las Vegas Raiders - Open
Dallas Cowboys - Open
New Orleans Saints - Open
GM
Tennessee Titans - Filled by Mike Borgonzi
New York Jets - Open
Las Vegas Raiders - Open
As you can see, only two teams have both openings open. This isn’t a good or bad thing in and of itself and you could look at it through either lens. If you are a HC candidate, you could be paired with a bad GM (like in Jacksonville) or in the case of LV and NYJ, no GM and potentially be a part of that conversation for hiring one. This also means that in some way, your tenure as a head coach is tied to that decision, a staff member who can (and probably will) be a big part in deciding your fate with the franchise.
Go to an open HC job with a good GM? Great, but it might mean that you are on the chopping block first if something out of your control (injuries, the great GM having a bad stretch, etc.)
Go to an open HC job with no GM? It’s nice you could be a part of that conversation and getting to pick what is ultimately a partnership and who your boss (typically) is. But you are rolling the dice as well on the unknown-ness that is NFL executive and coaching hiring (seriously we have no idea who is and isn’t a a good HC or GM candidate mostly).
Go to an open HC job with a bad GM? Obvious issues here but perhaps you can Game of Thrones your way into power and removing said bad GM. Also the GM could be the scapegoat and presumably they are on thin ice already since the HC position is open, typically meaning that the team has been bad for 2+ seasons in a row.
As for GMs, you don’t have a choice this year. You are bringing in a new coach now that the Titans role as been filled. Congrats, you get to make a high leverage decision as the first thing you do. Good luck!
Now to the point: I think the Raiders head coaching job (and the GM role too) is being underrated. Let’s do an exercise here. I’m going to Google “NFL head coach opening ranked” and pick the first few top results from major outlets that show up (congrats to SEO staffers) and see where the Raiders job ranks.
ESPN: 5th (JAX/CHI/NE/LV/NYJ/NO) - Dallas job was not open at the time of publishing but I’m presuming it wouldn’t be lower than LV. Also Barnwell had Miami (which I think was incorrect in even including or speculating on) and the Giants on his list (retained everyone)
USA Today: 7th (CHI/DAL/JAX/NYJ/NO/LV) - NE job not included at time of publishing because it was filled but presuming it wouldn’t be lower than LV
Fox Sports: 6th (NE/DAL/JAX/CHI/NYJ/LV/NO)
SI: 4.5 (NE/CHI/JAX/LV/NJ/NO) - JAX and LV were tied for 3A and 3B. Dallas job was not open at the time of publishing but I’m presuming it wouldn’t be lower than LV
USA Today: 7th (NE/CHI/JAX/NYJ/NO/LV) - Dallas job was not open at the time of publishing but I’m presuming it wouldn’t be lower than LV
Sporting News: 5th(CHI/DAL/JAX/LV/NO/NYJ) - NE job not included at time of publishing because it was filled but presuming it wouldn’t be lower than LV
SB Nation: 6th (CHI/NE/JAX/NYJ/LV/NO) - Dallas job was not open at the time of publishing but I’m presuming it wouldn’t be lower than LV
In a few cases, the Raiders job was ranked last. In other cases, it was only second to last. At best, it was the fourth and a half best opening. And even including that 4.5, the average was 5.9 out of 7 (did some guesswork below on missing parts and ranking but it’s roughly right in my opinion).
The consensus is that the Saints job stinks, and yeah, it does, the rankers got that one right. But I think they are underrating the Raiders job. Not that I think it is a great job, but if I had to rank them I would put it as:
Patriots
Bears
Cowboys
Raiders
Jaguars
Jets
Saints
And if I am being honest, I wouldn’t have an issue with it being third if you wanted to swap the Cowboys or Bears with Las Vegas.
So I guess, I should lay out my pitch why at this point.
Offseason assets
I’m going to borrow heavily here from Timo Riske and the folks at PFF, who have gathered and laid out the information both numerically and visually.
From a pure draft capital standpoint, the Raiders have the 3rd most of any team. Yes, they don’t have a top five pick (6th as of now) but they make up for that in quantity
From a pure draft capital standpoint, the Raiders have the 3rd most of any team. Yes, they don’t have a top five pick (6th as of now) but they make up for that in quantity. Their current picks (per Tankathon):
(note that the Raiders have the 6th pick in the first but the 5th and 4th in the second and third due to cycling picks with New England and Jacksonville after round one)
For all intents and purposes, the Raiders have functionally five top 100 picks. Not a world breaking amount (several other teams have five as well) but plenty of potential spots to add early round talent at the natural pick or someone who “falls” (careful calling guys a draft reach or steal during the draft).
And per PFF’s chart, only the Browns (who have the #2 pick) and the Giants (who have the #3 pick) have more total draft capital than Las Vegas, and that is despite Vegas picking 3-4 spots later in the first.
I also did some compiling of my own a few weeks back before the playoffs using the Fitzgerald-Spielberger draft value table at OverTheCap and came to a similar figure.
Again, the Raiders come in with the third most capital and the third most picks.
When it comes to cap space, the Raiders find themselves at the top of the chart (okay, right-most area of the chart) as well.
Without going too deep into effective cap space and restructuring potential, the Raiders cap picture is as good as anyone’s outside of the Patriots. The Raiders have $85M in effective cap space (cap space after paying rookie and filling out a full roster), the second most in the league. If they really wanted to open up the roof, they could have $165M in cap space if they did max restructures (they won’t), per OvertheCap below.
Even with no restructures, the Raiders have a floor before any cuts or trades of ~$85M in cap space for 2025. Some simple restructures could lift that floor to ~ $141M without major future sacrifices in space.
Looking out to 2026, the Raiders have $157M in effective cap space, $10M more than the next team. That’s $40M more than the Giants and $49M more than the Patriots (two teams at the top of the draft with them).
Obviously a lot of assumptions and unknowns above, and 2025 player additions/subtractions will change 2026 cap numbers. But the point remains: the Raiders have as much financial flexibility for the next two seasons as anyone.
Combine the draft picks and cap space, a true look at offseason assets, and you can see which teams have the best means to get better. And look…it’s the Raiders and Patriots at the top once more.
The Raiders should be in conversation for every major free agent available in a March where they have a need (a lot of them!). My mantra has always been sign for need, draft for value. The Raiders can plug immediate holes (QB, RB, WR, CB) through signings, and attack the draft in April for value with their ten picks. They have about as much flexibility as any team when it comes to improving their 2025 roster and beyond.
Quarterback
Now I’ll point out again, the Patriots (Drake Maye), Jaguars (Trevor Lawrence), Cowboys (Dak Prescott), and Bears (Caleb Williams) all (seemingly) have their franchise QB, the Raiders do not. And as it stands, they likely are not going to be able to draft Ward or Sanders and there aren’t any major QBs on the trade block. They could sign someone like Sam Darnold (who was legit good in Minnesota this year but it remains to be see if his production will repeat and how much of it was Kevin O’Connell induced) or Justin Fields (a so far “busted” QB who has athletic skills but perhaps has never had a good HC/OC supporting him). There is also various darts they could throw: drafting someone like Jalen Milroe or Jaxson Dart (notice the pun?) and see what they could be, they could trade for Hendon Hooker or Joe Milton young backups with big arms type (Will Levis I suppose too).
But the biggest point remains: their path to their 2025 and beyond quarterback is unknown, and murky at best. They have options for upgrades, but they don’t have a glaring solution (beating the Jaguars and Saints in their penultimate two games assured that). Perhaps they could trade up for the right to select Ward or Sanders but they would have to both find a partner and pay the price. Both QBs floors seem to stop at #3 overall, as surely two of TEN/CLE/NYG will take one. I suppose you could talk the Browns into trading back. If they aren’t set at taking a QB (reminder that they will still be paying Watson anywhere from $35M to $60M a year in cap for a few more seasons), they are an analytical friendly team and shouldn’t mind trading back and collecting the bounty. But that of course drains a decent amount of draft capital and the Browns would surely shop the pick between Vegas and both New York teams, increasing the price. It’s possible, but for now we should assume the Raiders 2025 QB will not be Cam Ward or Shedeur Sanders.
So yes, this is a major flaw but it isn’t necessarily fatal, especially when you look at the longer game. The incoming head coach of the Raiders doesn’t HAVE to fix the QB situation immediately and the expectations for the 2025 season shouldn’t be Super Bowl or bust. The expectation should be a long runway, being able to build out a roster and find a QB at some point. The 2026 QB class looks a lot better, and depending upon the outcome of the 2025 season and assuming the Raiders don’t make a deep playoff run, they should be in striking distance for any of the top QB prospects next year.
And ultimately, this comes down to a selection for the head coach candidate: do I want to compete now with mostly the players in place, or do I want to be part of building a roster to match my style of play and coaching. There isn’t a correct answer here. We’ve seen it work in both cases and we’ve seen it fail in both cases too.
Current roster
The Raiders current roster isn’t bereft of talent and for the most part it is cost controlled and cheap. In fact, the Raiders are one of 12 teams with positive surplus value, as measured by OvertheCap’s Value Over APY metric.
Headline players obviously include tight end phenom Brock Bowers and stalwart center potential Jackson Powers-Johnson, but there are some solid contributing young(er) players in Jakobi Meyers, Delmar Glaze, Tre Tucker, Thayer Munford, Thomas Harper, Jakorian Bennett, and Amari Burney who all contributed in some form this year and have a year or more left.
They aren’t also bogged down by older players with heavy cap hits, as they have the second youngest roster in the league (again per OTC).
To be clear, this team lost 13 games in 2024. It’s not a talented roster by any means but also quarterback play brought them down overall. Even just raising the floor of performance there would go a long way before even using the cap space available and draft picks.
The elephant (condor?) in the room is what to be done with Maxx Crosby. One of the best edge rushers in the game, he turns 28 just before the season opener and has two more years left on his deal. While those two remaining years aren’t cheap (they are the 3rd and 6th highest cap hits for edge rushers in their respective years), Crosby is a defensive weapon whose contract carries a lot of value still despite the pay. It’s not unreal to think the conversations for acquiring Crosby include a first round pick.
Ownership
It doesn’t appear like this has historically been a major issue for head coaching candidates. Teams with “bad” owners (however that is measured) like the Jets, Panthers, Titans, Jaguars, Giants, Browns, and Bears haven’t really had to settle for poor candidates when hiring. In fact, the Bears just hired one of the most sought after head coach candidates in some years in Ben Johnson yesterday!
There are only 32 NFL head coaching positions in the world. These are sought after jobs with something like 5-10 candidates per opening interviewing every time. Who is signing the checks is a small factor when it comes to these sought after positions. How often is the ownership group the deciding factor? I’d argue rarely, given that the ownership group doesn’t tank the pitch to the candidate in the hiring process.
We all know Mark Davis and the embarrassing and unserious circus that has set up the tent since he inherited the franchise from his father. Not counting Hue Jackson (who Mark inherited as head coach of his now team), the Raiders have had seven head coaches since Jackon’s firing in 2011. Basically a new coach every 1.5 to 2 years. In the same span, he’s hired four general managers (not counting interim GM Champ Kelly). Stability at the Raiders executive and coaching level has been at San Andreas fault line levels, quaking when activated in a bad way.
But for prospective head coaches and GMs looking for stability, it may be coming or already here. A month ago, the league approved Davis’ sale of a 15% of stake in the franchise to a minority ownership group, just a few months after the league also approved a 10% sale to a different minority group that included notoriously Tom Brady as a part.
As of now, Davis is still the majority owner with his mother, so he’s still the lead decision maker. But there is a thought that that might change at some point soon.
Davis of course just inherited the team after his father passed, unlike many new owners who were simply rich enough to buy the team. And while no NFL team or owner is poor or really cash strapped in the current revenue climate, there are certainly “poor” owners relative to others, with Davis as one of them (though no one is shedding a tear for him). When Davis sold part of the franchise, he turned that equity ownership on paper to an actual cash flow into his and the team’s pocket. Meanwhile in taking on minority owners far wealthier than him (from a liquidity perspective), the checkbook gets a bit bigger.
In part too, Davis will have to pay inheritance tax when his mother passes away on the massive growth in value of the franchise from when it was purchased in 1966 to today. As an only child, the cost comes out of his pocket, and while it is presumed that his recent sales were in part to cover that future liability, he may sell more if necessary (and there is certainly a market as the NFL recently approved private equity groups to purchase stakes). How much future sale potentially is the question. Per league rules, the controlling owner must own at least 30% and no team can have more than 25 owners. If the Brady group and the Silver Lake/Discovery Land Company group don’t acquire any more, Davis could sell up to ~44% of remaining equity, having to split it at least between two groups (so no group has more than 30% and Davis still does). That obviously would mean Davis would give up majority control, but would still own the largest share.
(a quick note: Davis is the majority owner but he doesn’t own all of the portion that was retained after the recent sales. There are a handful of small owners as a part of his ownership block too and some of their shares were sold alongside Davis’)
This isn’t to say it will happen, but more so that Davis is no longer the sole voice running things and he’s opened up paths for others to contribute while cashing in on his financial liabilities and needs. The sole voice part is important here.
Davis brought on Brady and Co. specifically to “lean on him for organizational needs” and have a prominent voice in football operations. And Brady for his part doesn’t appear to just want to be a passive owner, in it just to say he owns a team and get a nice suite on gameday. Brady has already been involved, per The Athletic, as he’s:
Sat in on head coaching and GM interviews
Reached out to Bill Belichick while the ink is drying on his UNC contract still
Was part of the decision making group to fire Telesco and Pierce
Meanwhile in another change of pace, Davis has hired a third party firm (Korn Ferry) as a consultant and search committee for filling their open roles versus when he did all the hiring and candidate pool collection mostly himself (and with the help of others he knew).
It does remain to be seen if the Raiders have flipped the switch from an unserious organization to a serious one, but they’ve made steps. Landing Ben Johnson would have been a very big step but you can’t force someone to take a job and Johnson went with arguably the best opening available (that also paid him a boat load of money to do so). But firing Telesco and Pierce (neither should have been hired in the first place but we can chalk that up to just Davis running the show pre-sale) at least provides a clean reset and path forward.
I think there is a real appeal to this job as a head coach and general manager. From a financial/asset standpoint, you’ve got a lot working for you:
Massive amount of cap space
A high quality and quantity of draft picks
Several good to elite players under contract
A new stadium and practice facility
An appealing city to attract talent
No state income tax
A new ownership group working toward turning the page from the past years
It’s not a guarantee the Raiders can shake the shame of their history since the passing of Al Davis, but a head coach and GM can be a part of the inflection point of turning a historic franchise around and building it from the ground up in their vision. That’s appealing, even if it is missing a core piece of the attraction in a franchise QB (or one within reach).