NFL teams don't usually look to former players to lead their clubs

Updated Sep. 4, 2024 9:04 p.m. ET

Associated Press

HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) — Antonio Pierce was nearing the end of his NFL playing career 16 years ago when he had the chance to intern for Howard Stern's wildly popular and often irreverent radio show.

Pierce enjoyed his time there so much, he initially pursued a post-football career in media.

“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 first love, getting back into football through coaching.

Pierce began at the high school level and then worked his way up to this week, when he gets his first game as the Raiders' full-time head coach. Las Vegas opens its season Sunday at the Los Angeles Chargers.

His decision to enter coaching isn't all that common for former NFL players. He is one of eight former players — not counting Denver's Sean Payton, who suited up for three games as a replacement player during the 1987 strike — who are current head coaches, a fairly high number by historical standards.

“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 living in the coaches' rooms. When you’re wealthy, you might find being in a broadcast booth a lot easier than trying to spend your waking hours in a profession (in which) that’s what’s demanded of you.”

That's especially true for elite players. Of the current head coaches, only four made the Pro Bowl, including Pierce. Among those four, only the Patriots' Jerod Mayo and the Texans' DeMeco Ryans received Associated Press All-Pro honors. Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh was fourth in the AP MVP voting in 1995.

Most coaches historically don't have such a robust athletic resume.

Of the 20 coaches with the most wins in the Super Bowl era, only Tom Landry and Dan Reeves were All-Pros. Among the 14 coaches who have won multiple Super Bowls, only Landry with two was chosen All-Pro — in 1954.

Excepting Payton, the top seven coaches in wins since 2010 did not play in the league, instead working their way up to the pros.

“There’s only so many slots open every year in the NFL and there’s a lot of qualified coaches,” Horrigan said. “So the NFL can be picky in who they hire, but also the candidates have to be able to demonstrate that they can coach. It’s kind of a shared route of going through the collegiate ranks.

“It's kind of like a minor league system for coaches. The transition from player to coach is a tough one and it's not for everyone.”

Whether going directly into an NFL coaching staff or starting in college (or lower), former players had notable success last season.

Ryans took over a Texans team that went 3-13-1 the year before 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 Detroit to the NFC championship game.

The year before, Kevin O'Connell took the Vikings to the playoffs with a 13-4 record.

O'Connell said his experience as a quarterback helped him bring along rookie QB J.J. McCarthy before he injured his right knee in preseason, calling that “the former quarterback in me.”

Back in the NFL is another ex-quarterback in Harbaugh, who coached San Francisco to a Super Bowl appearance 12 years ago. He spent the previous nine years at his alma mater, Michigan, and last season coached the Wolverines to the national championship.

Now he's trying to take a Chargers franchise with a history of underachieving to similar heights.

“He just has that really unique sense of understanding what’s good for the team," Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter said. “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 faces the Raiders this weekend.

Las Vegas cornerback Jack Jones has played for Pierce at Long Beach (California) Poly High School, Arizona State and now 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 thought back to that 2008 internship with Stern and the opportunities the show gave him in front of and behind the camera. He wasn't ready, however, to divulge what happened behind the scenes with the self-professed “king of all media.”

“We've got to have a happy hour,” Pierce said.

Pierce had a sobering moment when he was named the Raiders' interim coach at midseason last year. He went 5-4, got the job on a full-time basis and now is preparing for his first season opener in charge.

“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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This story has been corrected. A previous version reported erroneously that Bill Walsh had been an All-Pro as a player. Walsh never played in the NFL.

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AP Sports Writers Dave Campbell and Joe Reedy contributed to this report.

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