Raiders fans shouldn't expect Mark Davis to get next coaching hire right

Now that the Josh McDaniels era has officially ended with the Las Vegas Raiders, it's time for owner Mark Davis to step back into the spotlight and find his next head coach.

If his prior history in such endeavors tells us anything, it should be that he's not going to get this next hire right.

Why? Well, put simply, he never gets it right.

It was pretty apparent through McDaniels' year-and-a-half on the Raiders sideline that he was not the right head coach for the team — or any team — and that his firing was inevitable. 

Even with that being the case however, the Raiders' primary problems were never centered on McDaniels, his offense or his in-game decision-making. 

With perpetually bad teams (like the Raiders), the problems are never down to any one coach, player or roster decision. There are always deeper issues at play, usually coming from higher up in the organization.

In this case, the rot is in the owner's box.

Davis has been in charge of the team since the 2011 season and has overseen one of the league's least-successful franchises during his tenure. Head coaches have changed. General managers have changed. Quarterbacks have changed. The overall roster has changed. Even the city has changed. 

The only two things that have remained the same have been him and the poor results on the field.

Under Davis' watch, the Raiders have managed just two winning seasons and only two playoff appearances. They have not won a single playoff game during that time and have not actually won a playoff game as an organization since reaching the Super Bowl in 2002 — more than 20 years ago. 

Every time Davis has been put into a position where he has to make a significant decision for the team, he has failed so spectacularly that often, he has to quickly make another significant change to try to fix his mistake. Of course, that also fails. This has been a never-ending cycle for more than a decade, and there is no end in sight. 

Interim head coach Antonio Pierce will already be the eighth different head coach he has had since 2011, and assuming Davis makes a new full-time decision for next season that number will increase to nine. His head coaching hires have an average tenure of just 1.5 years, so there is no consistency, which leads to losses. His last two hires saw him dump huge amounts of money on Jon Gruden (a decade after he last coached in the NFL) and then McDaniels who had already had a disastrous experience as a head coach in the league. He should have known better.

It remains to be seen what direction Davis will go in next (his past three hires have all been coaches with prior head coaching experience) but it seems likely it will not be the right decision for the Raiders. The cycle will continue.