Mailbag: Could Mark Davis clean house this offseason?

While the Las Vegas Raiders have a Week 8 matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, the focus of this week’s mailbag is on the offseason. The majority of questions submitted have to do with free agency or the NFL Draft, as well as if Antonio Pierce is on the hot seat to finish the season.

Q: If the Raiders keep losing badly, do you see Mark Davis cleaning house except for Tom Telesco?

A: My gut still says Pierce is going to get one more year. I think Davis can recognize that the quarterback situation has been so bad this season that any head coach would struggle to win games. Also, while Pierce needs to show improvement with the game management portion of the job, some of that can be excused by his inexperience. But again, he does need to show improvement and stop making the same mistakes.

However, what could warm up AP’s seat is if the team keeps getting blown out and players start checking out. His best quality as a head coach right now is that the locker room likes him and has his back—that’s primarily how he got the job—so if that goes out the window, it’s harder to justify keeping him for another season.

In other words, I think it’s fair to say that Pierce’s job is on the line, but I’d bet on him getting one more season as things stand right now. The other factor to consider here is the constant turnover the Raiders have had at head coach, especially since the team moved to Vegas just four years ago, and whether Davis wants to continue that trend or be patient with Pierce.

Q: Matt, if AP gets canned at the end of the season, do you think the Raiders keep Patrick Graham or does he get the boot too? I would like them to keep Rob Leonard.

A: If a new head coach comes in, he’ll probably want to hire his own staff. Sometimes coordinators and position coaches will get retained despite the change at the top, but it just depends on what the new head honcho wants to do.

Q: Do any of these players bring trade value: Tre’von Moehrig, Jack Jones, Kolton Miller and Andre James?

A: I touched on this a little bit last week. I think Moehrig could have some value since he’s young and has played well in the past. He also had a good game last week to recoup some value after a tough start to the season.

Miller would definitely be valuable for a team that has issues at or an injury at left tackle like the Vikings, who could be without Christian Darrisaw depending on the results of Darrisaw’s MRI. However, if Las Vegas is going to have a young quarterback next season, I wouldn’t like to see the front office get rid of a left tackle who is good in pass protection and under contract in 2025.

I’d be pretty surprised if the Raiders could get anything for Jones and James.

Jones’ effort has been an issue with two teams now and he’s a ball-hawking corner who has no interceptions so far this season. He’s been disappointing, making it hard for me to see a contending team wanting him. James has also been bad this year and I doubt another club would want to take on his contract given the sub-par play.

Q: Which order would you prioritize re-signing our defenders? You mentioned Nate Hobbs but I think Adam Butler is my top priority.

Photo by Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty Images

A: I’d look into trading Butler rather than re-signing him. He’s having a career year, especially against the run, but I wouldn’t bet on a 30-year-old defensive tackle maintaining that level of play when the team is trending toward getting younger and rebuilding in the offseason.

In this order, below is who I’d prioritize:

• Nate Hobbs
• Malcolm Koonce (ideally, a one- or two-year contract to give him the chance to prove himself that he was supposed to have this season)
• Moehrig
• Robert Spillane (though I wouldn’t mind seeing him get traded at the deadline to get some draft picks, either)
• Isaiah Pola-Mao (he’s a restricted free agent so it shouldn’t be too expensive or difficult to bring him back)

Q: When might we expect the Raiders to start re-signing players who are not under contract after this season?

A: Probably not until the offseason. If they were going to re-sign players early, it likely would have happened by now.

Q: Any interior defensive line or defense guys you’re keeping an eye on outside of the top names?

A: Derrick Harmon from Oregon has been pretty impressive lately. I’m also a fan of T.J. Sanders out of South Carolina for a couple of defensive tackles to keep tabs on. At linebacker, I like Utah’s Lander Barton (former Raider Jackson Barton’s brother) and Oklahoma’s Danny Stutsman.

To be honest, I don’t have a good pulse on the secondary prospects yet outside of the big names. I typically dive into those guys once the regular season is over and the draft starts picking up.

Q: As a die-hard lover of interior line play, I’ve been waiting decades for the next Steve Wisniewski. I love the TV coverage of Jackson Powers-Johnson and his aggression off the snap but his PFF scores don’t match the eye test. Is his aggressiveness costing him, can I safely order a 58 jersey?

A: Something I’ve learned over the years of being a Raider fan is to never buy a jersey for a current player, lol. Take it from someone who still has a Khalil Mack jersey hanging in his closet, I’d hold off and stick to the classic players regardless.

As far as Powers-Johnson goes, he’s had good moments/reps that are getting highlighted on the broadcast, but he’s struggling with consistency. JPJ’s pad level is his biggest problem right now and that’s frequently the primary reason he loses.

So, there’s reason for optimism about his future, but he definitely has things to clean up moving forward which is typical for a first-year player. Also, Powers-Johnson missing time during the spring and training camp plays a big factor in that as he did lose an opportunity to speed his development along.

Q: How much longer must we endure this so-called O.C.?

A: Luke Getsy is far from perfect as I’ve criticized his running game several times this season, but he isn’t the Raiders’ biggest problem offensively. There have guys open down the field, but a particular quarterback likes to drop his eyes and scramble instead of throwing the ball.

Q: What are the strengths and weaknesses of Desmond Ridder?

A: Marcus will have an article coming out on this soon that dives into more details. The publish date for that is TBD, though. To be honest, I wouldn’t expect much from Ridder. He does have a big arm and can run, but his decision-making and accuracy are sub-par.

A: The first position to build up is quarterback (breaking news!) and then I think they’ll try to add some talent at wide receiver. At the offensive line, the Raiders have some young and promising players in Dylan Parham, DJ Glaze and Powers-Johnson to keep the trenches from being a major priority in the draft. I’d like to see the front office find more long-term solutions at left tackle and center, but this year’s class is looking pretty weak at those two spots.

Defensively, cornerback should be a big priority and, if Koonce doesn’t come back, finding a second-edge rusher. The challenge, as it looks like you’re alluding to, is sufficiently addressing both sides of the ball in one offseason is nearly impossible.

In my opinion, the best-case scenario for the Raiders next year is they use the draft to address the issues on offense, Koonce and Hobbs re-sign while Jakorian Bennett and Decamerion Richardson develop into quality starters. Jones could be lumped into the latter too, I just have more faith in Bennett and Richardson at this point.

That’s a lot that has to work in the Raiders’ favor but that’s the blueprint to hope for.

A: I’ll go with three. I believe it was Bill who put this scenario out on X/Twitter and I can buy it/see happening. Minshew starts the next two games before the bye week, then Ridder gets a shot after the bye as he’ll have enough time to learn the playbook. After that, it’s anyone’s guess but maybe O’Connell gets another start.

Starting four quarterbacks this season is undoubtedly on the table, though.

A: As you mentioned, Telesco has been stubborn about not trading during the draft. However, after missing out on this past year’s quarterbacks and knowing that this is likely his last chance at being an NFL general manager, I could see Telesco changing his stripes and going all-in on Cam Ward or Shedeur Sanders.

Also, if the Raiders are picking say sixth, the compensation needed to move up to picks one or two wouldn’t be nearly as dramatic as it was last April when they were sitting at 13.

Another reason why Telesco might trade up is if the team doesn’t get a competent quarterback this offseason, he’d probably get fired anyway. So he might as well gamble one of the guys mentioned above. From his perspective, he looks smart if the player pans out and if the player doesn’t, the lost future draft picks won’t be his problem anymore.

That’ll do it for this week’s mailbag. Thank you all for submitting questions and, as your weekly reminder, if you’d like to have your questions answered in a future column, tweet them at me, @MHolder95, email them to [email protected] or look for our weekly call for questions on the site. The latter will continue to publish on Thursdays.