Sixteen years ago, Antonio Pierce was nearing the end of his NFL playing career when he had the opportunity to intern for Howard Stern’s highly popular and often controversial radio show.
Pierce enjoyed the experience so much that he initially aimed for a career in media after football.
“Putting on makeup and looking at a camera for eight years is pretty cool,” he said. “But I missed being in that locker room. I missed competing. I missed that fire burning in my stomach.”
So, he returned to his passion and got back into football by becoming a coach.
Pierce started coaching at the high school level and worked his way up to this week, when he will have his first game as the Raiders’ full-time head coach. Las Vegas will start its season on Sunday against the Los Angeles Chargers.
It’s not very common for former NFL players to become coaches. Pierce is one of eight former players—excluding Denver’s Sean Payton, who played three games as a replacement during the 1987 strike—currently serving as head coaches, which is quite high compared to historical numbers.
“Coaching is very, very tough,” said Joe Horrigan, former executive director of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. “You have to be totally dedicated. Your time is spent in the coaches’ rooms.
When you’re wealthy, you might find being in a broadcast booth a lot easier than spending all your waking hours in a profession that demands so much of you.”
This is especially true for top players. Of the current head coaches, only four have been selected to the Pro Bowl, including Pierce.
Among these four, only Patriots’ Jerod Mayo and Texans’ DeMeco Ryans have received Associated Press All-Pro honors. Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh was fourth in the AP MVP voting in 1995. Historically, most coaches do not have such impressive athletic backgrounds.
Among the 20 coaches with the most wins since the Super Bowl began, only Tom Landry and Dan Reeves were selected as All-Pros. Of the 14 coaches who have won multiple Super Bowls, only Landry, with two, was named All-Pro—in 1954.
Apart from Payton, none of the top seven coaches with the most wins since 2010 played in the NFL; they worked their way up through other levels of coaching.
“There are only a limited number of positions available each year in the NFL and many qualified coaches,” Horrigan said. “The NFL can be selective in who they hire, and candidates need to show they can coach. It’s common for coaches to come through the college ranks.
“It’s like a minor league system for coaches. The shift from being a player to a coach is difficult and not everyone can make it.” Former players had significant success last season, whether they started in the NFL or came from college (or other lower levels).
Ryans took over a Texans team that had a 3-13-1 record the previous year and led Houston to the playoffs. Todd Bowles with the Buccaneers and Dan Campbell with the Lions also made the postseason.
All three won at least one playoff game, with Campbell taking the Lions to the NFC Championship Game. The year before, Kevin O’Connell led the Vikings to the playoffs with a 13-4 record.
O’Connell said his experience as a quarterback helped him mentor rookie QB J.J. McCarthy before McCarthy injured his right knee in the preseason, calling it “the former quarterback in me.”
Another former quarterback, Harbaugh, is back in the NFL. He previously coached San Francisco to a Super Bowl appearance 12 years ago and spent the last nine years at Michigan, where he led the Wolverines to the national championship last season.
Now he’s working to elevate a Chargers team that has struggled to meet expectations to new heights.
“He just has that really unique sense of understanding what’s good for the team,” said Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter. “But also he’s been in their shoes.
They respect the fact that he’s been in their shoes. He respects that they’re going through what he went through.”
Harbaugh’s team is set to play the Raiders this weekend. Las Vegas cornerback Jack Jones has played for Pierce at Long Beach (California) Poly High School, Arizona State, and now with the Raiders.
“A guy that’s never played in between the white lines and he’s trying to tell you how to make a tackle, how to do anything … it’s just harder to feel that, to understand,” Jones said.
“When you’re getting it from a former player, it’s almost like no question, like he did this before, so I don’t even have to question it.”
Pierce remembered his 2008 internship with Stern and the chances the show gave him both in front of and behind the camera.
He wasn’t ready, though, to share details about what happened behind the scenes with the self-proclaimed “king of all media.” “We’ve got to have a happy hour,” Pierce said.
Pierce had a significant moment when he was named the Raiders’ interim coach midseason last year. He went 5-4, earned the job on a full-time basis, and is now getting ready for his first season opener as head coach.
“I’m approaching the exact same way,” Pierce said. “When I got the interim, I wasn’t trying to give it up. So, in my head, I was permanent.”
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