Dave Ziegler on His Talks With Josh McDaniels

The first year of the Dave Ziegler-Josh McDaniels regime was disappointing as the Las Vegas Raiders finished with a 6-11 record despite having playoff aspirations.

When a franchise takes a step backward after one year with a new head coach at the helm, the role will often face the most scrutiny.

But Ziegler, who was brought on board as the franchise's new general manager at the start of the 2022 offseason, has had patience with Coach McDaniels due to his empathy for coaches and the connection the two developed in New England.

Ziegler delved into the conversations he and McDaniels have off the field regarding coaching decisions on this week's edition of the "Bussin' With The Boys" podcast, which debuted Tuesday morning.

"With Josh and I, specifically, obviously, we have a relationship that goes a long way back, and so we have had a lot of those critical conversations," Ziegler said. "And we can have them. The cool thing about us, is we can do it without it causing like a divide. ... We've been in the NFL, and we know there can be these different struggles between coaching and personnel and all those different types of things. I would say, one, having coached and understanding -- even though it was at college and high school -- I have a great amount of respect for coaches and what they do and the amount of time, like we talked about, the amount of time they put in.

"And so, I'm not going to act like the expert, either, do you know what I mean? Because I know how much time that they put in, and I know ultimately, what coaches are trying to do is they try to put players in the best situations to have them be successful. ... I'll ask maybe the 'Why' or the reason, and I'd say almost 10 out of 10 times, or a lot of the times, like: 'OK, I get it. You were trying to do X, Y and Z, and we didn't execute it for whatever the reason is.' But we have a lot of those conversations -- I have a lot of the conversations -- because I want to learn, too, of the whys: 'Why did we do this here?' or 'Why did we do that here?' But it's not the why of like: 'Why the hell did you do that?' It's more like the curiosity, and again, having the dialogue to understand, to make sure, like, we are doing the right things."

The 2023 NFL Draft will go from April 27-29 and be held at Union Station in Kansas City, Mo. The NFL Scouting Combine is Feb. 28-March 6, 2023, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Ind. The club's deadline to designate Franchise or Transition Players is March 7, 2023, before 4 p.m. EST.

March 13-15 is the free agent negotiation period. Starting at 12 p.m. EDT on March 13 and ending at 3:59:59 p.m. EDT on March 15, clubs are permitted to contact and enter into contract negotiations with the certified agents of players who will become Unrestricted Free Agents upon the expiration of their 2022 Player Contracts at 4 p.m. EDT on March 15.

The 2023 NFL Year and Free Agency period begins at 4 p.m. EDT on March 15. The Raiders are expected to be significant players in the free-agent market this season.

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