The Raiders announced they had parted ways with ST Coordinator Tom McMahon early Friday afternoon after the Raiders missed a FG and had a punt attempt blocked vs the Broncos on primetime. The Raiders ranked 32nd in DVOA and EPA on special teams this season with the most missed tackles on ST as well, basically they were awful. McMahon served with the Raiders as their special teams coordinator since 2022 after being fired by the Denver Broncos in 2021. Prior to joining the Raiders McMahon’s units had a upwards trend in 2014-2017 with the Colts ranking 8th, 16th, 5th, and 8th prior to ranking 31st, 24th, 24th, 29th with Denver. After joining the Raiders, McMahon saw his units return to success ranking 11th in 2022, 9th in 2023, and then falling to 21st in 2024 before the 32nd finish through 9 games of 2025 the worst of his career.
The Raiders named former 49ers and Chargers special teams coordinator Derius Swinton as their interim special teams coordinator but that doesn’t automatically guarantee the unit is going to improve. In his two seasons as a special teams coordinator, his units finished 17th and 28th but did rank an average of 13th in missed tackle rate so the Raiders hopefully see some improvement in that aspect. Another area the Raiders will need an immense improvement comes with their punt coverage, where the Raiders have already seen 3 blocked punts which leads the NFL along with multiple missed snaps on FG and punt situations that have led to issues. Raiders fans may enjoy aggressive nature of Swinton who has faked 5 punts in his career including last season vs the Broncos which resulted in a large gain for now Falcons ILB Divine Deablo.
The most notable thing of in season coordinator firings, it indicates that pressure is mounting from ownership on making improvements. McMahon was the first domino but if the Raiders season continues on it’s trend he likely won’t be the only one.
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