For a long time, Mark Davis held onto this idea that was probably a little too clean to really work: bring Jon Gruden back, and the Las Vegas Raiders would feel like themselves again. The pursuit dragged on for six long years, and when Gruden finally said yes in 2018, Davis looked more relieved than anything else.
The 10-year, $100 million contract was big, but the math in Davis’ head was simple: Gruden on the Raiders meant things going back to how they were supposed to be. It just didn’t really play out like that.
What Went Wrong for the Raiders Under Jon Gruden and Mike Mayock
It’s not like everything collapsed in one go. It just kept not working, in small ways that added up. The scouts were doing the work, but there were some moments where it felt like all of that could get pushed aside pretty quickly. If Gruden did not like a player, that tended to be the end of it.
According to Zak Keefer of The Athletic, there were these kill tapes people talked about, clips of only the worst plays, strung together to make a point. You watch something like that in a meeting, and it’s hard to come back from it.
“You can make a player look any way you want,” one former anonymous staffer told Keefer. “You can make Tom Brady look like a bum.”
When Reggie McKenzie was out, and Mike Mayock came in, people noticed the hire in a more nuanced manner.
“When you see an established coach bring in a GM who’s never done the job, it’s 100 percent because the coach wants to run the building and manipulate things exactly how he likes them,” one former employee said.
Gruden had a type, and you might have already heard about it a lot. Players he already believed in, players who had been something at some point, even if that version was a little further back than people wanted to say aloud. At the same time, the team moved on from Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper. Apparently, the decision was about draft capital and flexibility, all of that. But it changed the feel of the roster right away.
Although there were hits like Maxx Crosby and Hunter Renfrow, it was not enough to really calm the waters. And then there was how things operated day to day. Coaches and scouts didn’t always feel like they were working toward the same thing. In some years, they literally weren’t, as evidenced by some separate draft boards and separate ideas. And in the end, things just did not hold themselves together.
Looking back, people point to that one stretch as where it started to feel like too much was being forced. Like the belief that you could coach your way through anything had gone a bit too far. Eventually, it caught up. Gruden resigned in 2021. Mayock was gone soon after. Since then, it’s been reset. But the roster didn’t reset with them.
“Antonio (Pierce) was given a sh*t roster. Pete (Carroll) was given a sh*t roster,” another anonymous source said. “The underlying issue is that Mark has never really respected the GM position. He let Gruden pick Mayock. Then he let Josh McDaniels pick his best friend as GM, Dave Ziegler. Now he lets Tom Brady do the same thing with Spytek.”
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And today, it feels like the start of something again. New staff, new structure, another draft. But building a roster takes time. Not as much as losing one, which doesn’t take nearly as long.
The Raiders have the first overall pick in the upcoming draft, and they are expected to select Fernando Mendoza to begin a new era. According to PFSN’s Offense Impact Metric, the Raiders had the second-worst offense in the league last season with an impact score of 56.3. New head coach Klint Kubiak is tasked with making major improvements in his first season.
