By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
The year of change for the Las Vegas Raiders continued Monday with the firing of General Manager May Mayock, while interim coach Rich Bisaccia said he has talked with owner Mark Davis about becoming permanent head coach. Davis who also plans to interview other head coach candidates.
There has been little stability in the NFL franchise this past year, which included the resignation of Jon Gruden as head coach Oct. 11.
Davis said the team’s former president, Marc Badain, who helped guide the team’s move from Oakland to Las Vegas while also working on the stadium construction project here, resigned in mid-July because of accounting issues. Former team lawyer, Dan Ventrelle, was shifted to interim president in July, though two new reports said the Raiders are considering Wynn Resorts CEO Matt Maddox as team president this year.
Through all the unsettled management scene, the Raiders found a way to win their last four games of the regular season to finish 10-7 and garner the fifth seed and top wild card spot in their conference. The topsy-turvy season season ended Saturday when the Raiders losing to the Cincinnati Bengals on the road, 26-19, in the NFL’s first wild card game.
The Mayock firing became news Monday with the Raiders releasing this statement via a 3:10 PM email: “We have relieved Mike Mayock of his duties as General Manager of the Las Vegas Raiders. We thank Mike for his contributions over the last three years in helping to form the foundation for the franchise to build upon in its future.”
Maycok did not release a response. The Raiders won 25 games and lost 24 during Mayock’s three years.
His daughter, Leigh, posted this on Twitter.
Bisaccia’s daughter also posted an item on social media about her dad’s note-writing to Raiders players.
He was asked about the letter writing at today’s media conference. Here’s Bisaccia’s response:
“The way that got out is my daughter and I were in the hotel room, it was really early in the morning, and I was in the process of finishing up some of the letters that I had started during the course of the week. And she thought that obviously was a pretty neat deal and she put it on her personal Facebook, which we had a conversation about after. And somehow it gets carried to someone and someone carries it someone else. And next thing you know, now we’re having a conversation about it.
“So, it’s my oldest daughter. I love her dearly. She is a teacher, she’s been a coach and I would rather have not had that gotten put out that way. But it did. And yes, it’s something I’ve done. You can go the way back to my college days. I’ve written different things, put it in guys lockers, or maybe it goes all the way back to my recruiting type deal.
“I usually text players a lot during the course of the week, different things. And so, this is just an opportunity for me to hit all the players that particularly dressed in that game, where I didn’t have to text every one of them individually. So, I just went back to writing some letters throughout the week, finishing them up that morning, and that’s how that that picture got out there. And so, that was my daughter’s sentiment of how proud she was of her dad, and I’ll take that every day, to know that your kids feel that way about you.”
The Raiders’ management structure has a different culture than most NFL teams.
Davis, the owner, has no other side business except the team — unlike many other owners who literally have generated billions of dollars in other assets and bought their NFL team after they made their money.
The Raiders do not have the same corporate culture as other major league teams and you will see Davis talking with fans of both his teams — the Raiders and the Las Vegas Aces.
He was ticked off that he found out about the Gruden email mess through news reports instead of straight from the NFL. Davis and Gruden were friends and Davis hired Gruden in 2018 for 10 years and $100 million — the most expensive single NFL coaching contract.
Davis hired Mayock Dec. 31, 2018, after Mayock served as a TV analyst for NFL Network. Mayock was seen as an NFL draft expert, though Gruden made final decisions regarding personnel.