For the second straight year, the Las Vegas Raiders are on the hunt for a new head coach. Antonio Pierce was fired after one full year on the job, and now the Raiders are hoping that with Tom Brady as a minority owner, they can land a solid head coaching option to compete with the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC West.
Brady has his sights set on Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, as do most of the teams with a head coaching vacancy. Johnson has completely turned things around for the Lions offensively and has made Jared Goff look like a top-five quarterback. Johnson was a hot head coaching candidate last year but decided to return to Detroit. It feels like this year he'll take a head coaching job and leave Detroit.
NFL Network's Ian Rapoport reported earlier this week that Brady was heavily recruiting Johnson. Clearly, Brady has a lot of say in the head coaching hire in Las Vegas, which might not be the best news for Chiefs fans, as this might mean the Raiders won't be making dumb hiring decisions anymore.
ESPN's Adam Schefter spoke about Johnson potentially picking the Raiders on his podcast. He laid out a clear reasoning for why the highly sought-after offensive coordinator should avoid this job at all costs.
"If [Johnson] takes the Raiders job, he's now going to a division where the head coaches are Andy Reid, Sean Payton, and Jim Harbaugh, and the quarterbacks are now Patrick Mahomes, Bo Nix, and Justin Herbert," Schefter said. "And you're going to a team that doesn't even have a quarterback, doesn't have a draft pick to go land a quarterback, and has to find a way somehow to get a quarterback. So, good luck with that."
Adam Schefter outlines why Ben Johnson should avoid taking Raiders HC job
Chiefs fans will love hearing that they're a prime reason why Johnson should avoid this job. That being said, the AFC West adding two other highly-established coaches in Jim Harbaugh and Sean Payton make the Raiders job even less appealing than it previously was, which should hopefully scare some potential top coaches away.
With the Raiders not even having an average quarterback or a top pick in the draft to find a quarterback, that's another reason why their head coaching vacancy isn't a good job right now. Brady can throw out whatever garbage he wants to but the fact of the matter is that this is not a good position for a first-year coach and Johnson should look elsewhere or stay in Detroit.
"The Raiders have so much ground to make up, right now, especially in that division. And that, to me, is what they have to overcome here," Schefter said, and he's one hundred percent right. Chiefs fans are hoping that Ben Johnson will listen to Schefter and stay out of the AFC West.