Josh McDaniels and the Las Vegas Raiders Secret Weapon
HENDERSON, Nev.--The Las Vegas Raiders brain trust of General Manager Dave Ziegler and Coach Josh McDaniels have a secret weapon heading into the 2023 National Football League regular season.
He is a secret because the rest of the league knows who he is, but many fans don't.
Often times fans overlook the ability of coaches to develop players. Many feel that players are paid large sums of money and the ability of coaches to develop players in the National Football League is underrated.
Don Shula once told me: "Every player entering the league, regardless of draft position, must be developed. They arrive good enough to play, but good enough isn't good enough. That is what I would tell young coaches about coaching at this level."
Josh McDaniels' secret weapon is proven to develop players, making him a rising star in the NFL.
That secret weapon is offensive line coach Carmen Bricillo.
Football has been part of the landscape of American culture since Nov. 6, 1869; the role of the coach and the player has been under the microscope ever since.
Some classic coaches like Bill Belichick, Vince Lombardi and Bill Parcells approach their job with a dictatorial style, and they have Super Bowl championships to lend creativity to their style.
Conversely, coaches such as Pete Carroll and Sean McVay are traditionally branded as "players' coaches" by those who set football on the gridiron.
Lastly, and perhaps the most difficult to find, is a coach like Bricillo, the Las Vegas Raiders offensive line coach.
This might surprise most fans, but the third type of coach has won more championships, yet they are the hardest to find. They are the John Madden-type leaders.
A coach like Bricillo is rare; they have the hard-nosed expectations of a Bill Belichick, yet they have the relationship and warmth with their players.
In most cases, the first two kinds of coaches are not loved. But that third kind is a unicorn.
That ability to be hard on a player while maintaining closeness, personal love, and warmth goes beyond the disingenuous "players coach." It has more to deal with in the real world.
My wife and I were out at a local establishment for dinner. A Raider came in, walked over, and we shared pleasantries with our spouses.
While our conversation had nothing to do with football, we began discussing the offensive line toward the end.
As soon as the direction of the conversation went to the gridiron and the offensive line, he said something to me: "Carm's (OL Coach Carmen Bricillo) guys love playing with him."
We didn't talk much longer about football, but that one comment told me everything I needed to know about Bricillo.
I asked center Andre James about what the player told me, and he said: "Since the first day Carm came in, he's just demanded perfection, and you really don't want anything else from a coach, especially an offensive line coach, with the consistency that's required to play offense line. So, since day one, he came in, and he's pushed our group to do better in everything we do. And we really respect that. Like I said, you want a guy like that, just a good guy you want to have in your room. And guys respect him, he's a great leader, and it's been great having him."
Offensive Coordfinator Mick Lombardi echoes the praise of Bricillo, saying: "Carmen is a phenomenal person. I mean, that's one of my best friends. I love Carmen Bricillo. He's a great coach and a great person, so it's easy love Carmen, because I think he does a couple things. He's honest, he holds players accountable and he tells them the truth. I think that's the most important thing about coaching is you give the players the truth, and you tell them what it is and what it's not. I think they want that, they deserve that, and I think Carmen does a great job at that."
A defensive player told me about something that swept through the locker room like wildfire last season.
Bricillo was watching the film with the offensive line, stopped it, and apologized. He saw something from an opponent he felt he failed to prepare the players for.
The player told me: "That wasn't the way things had been done around here before. (Name withheld) said to me, 'Carmen just f***ing apologized to us. Can you f***ing believe that?' I was like, my position coach wouldn't do that. I think everybody on this team respects Carmen, and the O-line loves him because he is real."
I asked another Raiders offensive lineman about it, and he told me: "It earned my trust."
I asked Bricillo about that incident and what the players said he had "Earned their trust." Getting him to discuss himself is difficult, but he said: "That is the No. 1 wording. It comes down to trust. To get past a problem or an issue, you have to recognize its existence, and you have to improve upon and get past it. To do that, you have to have a trust factor that to express a vulnerability to a group of peers that I screwed that up; that's on me; I try to do that whether I drew the wrong card or I tell players if I installed it wrong, or taught it wrong, I saw that wrong, or whatever it may be, it comes down to that word: trust. If you want to do it and demonstrate it, and you want them to do it and demonstrate it back to you, then you have to demonstrate it back to them."
There is no doubt that Bricillio is brilliant in the X's and O's of coaching. You don't get to where he is without it.
Last year, he had an O-line that many thought would be the worst part of the offense. It wasn't, and due to his development of players, they blocked for the NFL rushing leader.
In the National Football League, plenty of men are fluent in X's and O's, but they can't lead men like Bricillo.
While fans tend to think that McDaniels is cold, that isn't the case. He, like Bricillo, carries the trust of his team.
Bricillo is a rare thing in that he is demanding but loving.
As the player mentioned above said about Carment playing with his guys, creating that bond is challenging. Bricillio's most significant influence was his mother, Rheta.
When I asked Bricillo who impacted him the most, the only delay was his holding back the tears that came to his eyes, and once he had kept those from flowing over his eyelids, he said: "I would say, my mother."
Bricillo added while fighting tears: "She is a smart, tough, old bird."
She molded him. She taught him to be the man that he is. While many parents try to raise sons, she raised a man.
Not often in the world of football are the words compassion, love, caring, and kindness tossed around like footballs on the gridiron. They are with Bricillo.
He can't hide it, and he doesn't try.
Raised in a home with a mom like Rheta, he couldn't. She was tough and warm. She molded him into the fantastic father and husband that he is today.
Let me illustrate it through the words of one of his players.
His players called him: "Therapist, preacher, buddy, a guy you can talk about your relationships with, a parent."
You see, Bricillo learned from Rheta that you can't fake love. As one player said: "Carmen loves me, and I appreciate that about him. I can say this, and I mean it, I love him too."
I asked Bricillo to discuss that side of his character, and not being comfortable talking about himself, his answer told the real story.
"I think it is human nature to be genuine about it and to have passion for the people you are involved with," Bricillo said. "It goes back to trust, which is a word that gets used and is not false. I appreciate you just saying that. I don't know what the source of that is, but I think that at your core if someone doesn't know that you care about them as an individual, how do you do that? You find out about their whole family, and you care about that. You back it up with action. I think how you achieve that is by action."
The depth of the offensive line relationship with Bricillo was revealed to me last year in the team's locker room. A Raider offensive lineman had made a mistake. When I asked him in the locker room about it, he told me: "I really let Carmen down."
I was so shocked by the answer I went back and watched the interview again, unsure that I had heard him right. I had.
That is the most remarkable example of Bricillo's relationship with his players. They are a team.
Another Raider player told me that Bricillo made him a better husband. He said: "He's constantly reminding us, 'OK guys, you can't be so football focused you forget the most important people at home.' He always is talking about Megan (his wife) and Rilyn (his daughter)."
For a man raised in a divorced home, Bricillo isn't only molding some of the best offensive linemen in the National Football League; he is helping to develop men: better husbands, better fathers, better sons, better human beings. Bricillo isn't just impacting football players; he is influencing people. Something he learned from Rheta.
Bricillo said, "It is not necessarily my goal, but when you go about it the way that you need to do it to develop trust and regard for one another and a relationship that people are going to believe what you are saying, I think that ends up being the byproduct. They hear about my family because that is my family, my players. After that, I am not seeing anyone else. I am happy to hear that. I marvel, having been a long-time college coach. In college, you have seen these kids since they were 16 and 17 years old. You recruit them, and coach them until they are 22, and then send them out to the world. I thought with the pros, you would have a lot of older men, and it would be more peer, and it is. But then you realize that you still make an impact on their day-to-day life, and then you realize we are all trying to improve and be a better husband and father. I am humbled that someone would say that."
Tackle Jermaine Eluemunor summed up the relationship that the offensive line has with Bricillo eloquently: "Like there's so much that you have to do in this position that sometimes in the heat of battle, you can just overreact to some things. If he's shouting at you, you say something back and then -- just having that relationship with him where it's like, we get off on the sidelines and we're like: 'Yeah, we're good.' We just let bygones be bygones and let's just move on. It's kind of like having a next play mentality. When things are said, you just let them go because at the end of the day, you know you don't truly mean them."
But Eluemunor wasn't done. He went on to add: "We have a relationship off the field. I've known Carm [Carmen Bricillo] for five years now, and he was one of the first people I told I'm having a kid. And just that relationship I've built with Carm over the years because I was with him in New England when I was going through all of the like I said, the mental stuff of this game. He's been with me through everything. At times on the field, it can look like we're just fighting and arguing, but at the same time, we both have the same goal in mind. We both have a high standard, a really high standard for the way we want to play the game here, and we both know what we want. So, heads are going to clash in this game, but at the end of the day, we know what it is."
One Raider great told me earlier this year: "That guy has a lot of John Madden in him. People love him; he's a great family man and a terrific coach. He's special; he's got a very bright future. I hope we can keep him."
That Raider great is correct, but don't tell Bricillo. He loves talking about football, the Raiders, players, Rheta, Megan, and Rilyn. But he hates talking about himself. He lets others do that, and all they have is praise.
When whispers of John Madden come after your name, that is the highest praise.
It is unfair to say how far Bricillo can go, but what we do know is that he is the best offensive line coach in the National Football League, and people who knew Madden, see the similarities.
Whether or not he is the next John Madden, Bricillo is Josh McDaniels secret weapon, a son to Rheta, a husband to Megan, a dad to Rilyn, and a leader of Raider men. Who love him.
The Silver and Black open the regular season at the Denver Broncos on Sunday, Sept. 10, at 4:25 p.m. EDT/1:25 p.m. PDT.
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