Raiders' Marvin Lewis on Antonio Pierce's Drive

Las Vegas Raiders assistant head coach Marvin Lewis has a long history with Coach Antonio Pierce. Lewis spoke on Coach Pierce's inner drive.

Nov 26, 2023; Paradise, Nevada, USA; Las Vegas Raiders interim coach Antonio Pierce watches the game against the Kansas City Chiefs in the first half at Allegiant Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports | Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

One of the most significant arguments against Coach Antonio Pierce’s candidacy for the Las Vegas Raiders’ head coaching job earlier this offseason was his lack of experience as a head coach in the National Football League. To combat that weakness, Pierce surrounded himself with decades of coaching experience from the NFL and college football history.

Raiders assistant head coach and former Cincinnati Bengals coach Marvin Lewis and Coach Pierce have a long history together. When Pierce was looking for coaches to fill out his staff, he brought in Coach Lewis as a trusted source of knowledge and head coaching experience. 

Lewis said when he was a coach and Pierce was a player in the league, he didn’t know that Pierce would eventually become a coach in the NFL. However, Coach Lewis did see the same passion and drive from Pierce as a player that he now sees in Pierce as a coach. 

"Well, I don't know that then,” Lewis said. “I knew he was driven as a player. And I said that to him. I guess it was 2021 at ASU when he became the coordinator, and we flipped roles, and I went back off the field. 

“He came to me during the bye week, and he said, 'How am I doing?' I said, 'Man, you're doing really good, but you also need to take some time for yourself and take a deep breath as well,' but he's so driven, and I said, 'That's how you became such a great player is you're just so driven.'”

Lewis said one of Pierce’s best traits is his openness to hearing ideas from those around him.

“And he also, I think, based on how things happened in the fall and so forth, once he took over and reaching out to Coach [Tom] Coughlin and reaching out to myself and the people that he had come in and be around just so he could bounce ideas off of,” Lewis said. “He's not stuck on himself that way. He wants to hear other people's points of view and so forth that way, and that's good. But he has a great direction himself as a leader. He takes responsibility for providing direction and reinforcing it each and every day."

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