Josh McDaniels is the NFL’s first head coach firing of 2023 season

The Raiders GM is also ousted.

The first head coach fired in the 2023 NFL season got his walking papers on Halloween night.

Josh McDaniels and general manager David Ziegler have been let go by the Las Vegas Raiders just one day after back-to-back dismal defeats against the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions. Linebackers coach Antonio Pierce will be the team’s interim head coach for the remainder of the season.

The “Patriots West” thing the Raiders were doing, unsurprisingly, failed miserably. Vegas sits at 3-5, which isn’t miles off the pace in the AFC playoff hunt, but anyone who’s watched the Raiders can conclude they are a bad football team.

McDaniels signed a six-year contract with Las Vegas in the 2022 offseason, so the Raiders are on the hook for paying him the remaining four years. Great stuff by a franchise that gave Jon Gruden $100 million guaranteed before that went up in flames.

This is a Seattle Seahawks blog so I’ll put in the Seahawks-related trivia in here:

McDaniels is 2-0 lifetime as a head coach against Pete Carroll, having beaten the Seahawks in 2010 with the Denver Broncos, and then again in 2022 when Josh Jacobs rushed for what felt like 4,500 yards. Exactly 10 percent of McDaniels’ career wins as a head coach have come against Seattle.

But lest we forget that we are forever grateful to McDaniels after he took a 6-0 Broncos team in 2009 and cratered them to 8-8, missing the playoffs entirely. Thanks to a previously negotiated trade for Denver’s 2010 first-round pick, the Seahawks used Denver’s pick to get Earl Thomas. McDaniels was fired before the end of his second season with Denver.

Somehow, I don’t think McDaniels is getting another NFL head coaching job after two humongous failures.