The New York Giants are bringing in Super Bowl champion linebacker, and former Las Vegas Raiders head coach, Antonio Pierce to interview for their vacant head coaching job.
The interview, which was first reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter, will take place Thursday night.
Pierce, 47, played five seasons for the Giants and was a key piece of their 2007 Super Bowl defense. While he was never an athletic linebacker, Pierce’s sky-high football IQ allowed him to play much faster than he would time. It also allowed him to be a “coach on the field” for Steve Spagnuolo’s aggressive and sophisticated defense. He was eventually forced to retire due to a neck injury.
Pierce turned to coaching in 2014, first starting at the high school level before coaching at Arizona State from 2017 to 2022. He was hired by then Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels in 2022 as linebackers coach after resigning from Arizona State. Pierce was promoted to head coach after McDaniels was fired mid-2023. His first game as interim head coach was against the Giants on Nov. 5, 2023, which the Raiders won 30-6. He finished his season as interim head coach with a 5-4 record, which earned him the 2024 season as head coach. Overall, Pierce has a 9-17 (.346 winning percentage) record as a head coach.
It’s tempting to chalk Pierce up as a non-candidate to satisfy the Rooney Rule. However, he does have a pre-existing relationship with ownership and long-time members of the front office, as well as experience in the type of culture to which the Giants would like to return. It’s also possible — perhaps even likely — that the Giants are also looking at Pierce as a candidate for defensive coordinator, a position he held under Herm Edwards at Arizona State.
Former Atlanta Falcons coach Raheem Morris is also interviewing Thursday.
- Mike Kafka (Completed)
- Kevin Stefanski (Completed)
- Raheem Morris (Wednesday night and Thursday)
- Antonio Pierce (Thursday night and Friday)
- Vance Joseph (Friday — Virtual)
- Lou Anarumo (Pending)
- Klint Kubiak (Pending)
- Mike McCarthy (Pending)
- John Harbaugh (Pending)
NFL teams cannot simply get any candidate they want into their building for an interview and then hire that person on the spot. The Rooney Rule requires in-person interviews with at least two external minority candidates before hiring a coach. Mike Kafka, incidentally, would not count as a Rooney Rule interview for the Giants because the “external” requirement. There is also a schedule of when coaches can be interviewed. Here is the breakdown, via The Athletic:
- Teams with open head-coaching positions were able to begin requesting interviews with candidates from other teams on Jan. 6. Those interviews must happen virtually before the end of divisional-round games.
- Last year, the NFL recommended that teams with open head-coaching positions used this “virtual interview window” to set up initial interviews so those teams would be eligible to request a second interview with a candidate from a Super Bowl team during the bye week.
- Note: Teams may not interview employees of other teams that didn’t make the postseason until the third day after the employer teams’ Week 18 game (for example, Jan. 7 for a game on Jan. 4, or Jan. 8 for a game on Jan. 5).
These are the interview requirements for coaches of teams in the postseason:
- If the employer team has a bye in the wild-card round, virtual interviews may begin three days after Week 18 games and must happen before the end of wild-card games.
- If the employer team is participating in the wild-card round, virtual interviews may begin three days after the team’s wild-card game and must happen before the end of the divisional-round games.
Starting the day after the divisional round ends:
- Teams can conduct in-person or virtual interviews with candidates employed by other NFL teams whose seasons ended.
- Teams cannot hold initial interviews with candidates employed by teams participating in the AFC and NFC championship games until the end of the employer team’s season. A candidate’s employer team may not voluntarily grant permission for those interviews.
During the bye week between conference championships and the Super Bowl:
- Second interviews, either in-person or virtual, are allowed with head coach candidates employed by teams in the Super Bowl. The team(s) conducting the interviews must notify the employer team(s).
Contact with head coach candidates in the Super Bowl is not allowed from during the Super Bowl week until the day after the game.
See More:
