As the cool chills of autumn hung over Ford Field in Detroit on Devil’s Night in the Motor City, it was a foreshadowing of the doom on the horizon to the Raiders career of Coach Josh McDaniels and General Manager Dave Ziegler.
What started as so promising had come crashing down after a series of brutal mistakes. Many found Ziegler and McDaniels to have polar opposite opinions, but both were married to errors.
Both men are no longer part of the Silver and Black, and in talking to people around the NFL, both men are presently being painted with the same brush by many.
Ziegler is not employed today by the Raiders because he didn’t do enough to differentiate himself from McDaniels, but it isn’t fair to equate them as peas in a pod.
Great friends, no doubt, but should they be on the same page of responsibility as to what led to the demise of their Raiders careers? No.
Raiders Today talked to numerous sources about their relationship that failed miserably to operate one of the greatest franchises in the NFL.
Standing at a podium on Jan. 31, 2022, Ziegler was asked how important it was for him to work with McDaniels.
Ziegler had been a rare New England Patriot, as he wasn’t close to Bill Belichick. I wrote at the time that a team source from New England told me: “Dave is too nice of a guy to be here.”
I don’t think it’s a prerequisite, but there are some advantages to it,” Ziegler said. “I know Josh and my relationship goes back a long time, and our relationship has always been built on honesty and respect, and the ability to be each other’s biggest teammate and the ability to be each other’s critic, too, and to always come back to a place of respect and always come back to a place where we’re on the same page.”
Leave a Reply