New Fairfield’s Rich Bisaccia Could Become the Victim of Poor Choices by the Raiders

Rich Bisaccia is the New Fairfield native that rose to national prominence in 2021-2022 becoming the Interim Head Coach of the Raiders after Jon Gruden was fired by Las Vegas.

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According to NFL.com the Raiders fired their General Manager Mike Mayock on Monday (1/17/22) and that is bad news for Rich Bisaccia.

If the GM (Mayock) was kept in place, Bisaccia would be competing for the job with the advantage of already being in the organization and having a strong finish from a results standpoint. Now that Mayock is gone, Bisaccia will have to convince an incoming GM to keep him instead of hiring their own guy.

It’s very rare for a new GM to keep the current Head Coach in place, especially one with the interim tag in front of their name. The Mayock firing is problematic for a variety of reasons, but if it contributes to Bisaccia not getting the head coaching job, that will be the worst thing to come out of this.

Bisaccia deserves the job based on the results he got from his team, in spite of a cascading off-field issues. Bisaccia and the Raiders won their last four games to capture a playoff spot against good competition. During the late season stretch, Las Vegas beat the Browns, Broncos, Colts and Chargers to end the season. Each one of those teams was competing for a playoff spot at the time the Raiders beat them.

Anyone could make a case for Mayock’s firing but there is a stronger case for keeping him if it means you get to keep Bisaccia. Mayock’s detractors can fairly say he brought in a coach and at least two players with serious character issues.

Mayock hired coach Jon Gruden who was asked to resign after racist, sexist and homophobic e-mails surfaced. Mayock drafted Henry Ruggs III, who police say is responsible for the death of a woman as a result of a DUI car wreck. Finally, Mayock drafted Damon Arnette who was released after video surfaced of him brandishing guns and making odd threats on social media.

Mayock swung and missed on character but his hires and drafts were not as risky as they appear in hindsight. Most NFL teams would have drafted Ruggs III and Arnette, if given the opportunity. There are teams other than the Raiders that would have hired Gruden if they thought they could get him.

The off-field issues could not have been predicted by anyone and if Mayock was going to be held accountable for them, it should’ve happened the second Henry Ruggs III was accused of killing a woman while driving drunk.

In my opinion, the Raiders are in the midst of making poor choices to wipe away other bad decisions and Bisaccia will be the one who pays the price. As it stands today, the Raiders are a few personnel moves away from making a deep playoff run. None of those moves should involve the coach, Bisaccia should stay.

If I were the owner (Mark Davis), I would have kept Mayock on one condition, that he name Rich Bisaccia the full-time Head Coach of the Las Vegas Raiders.

Raiders founder Al Davis coined the phrase “Just Win Baby”, which is a saying the team preaches today but they do not live it. If “just winning” is the goal, you’d keep the coach responsible for your team’s recent winning ways, wins that came during serious adversity.

The Raiders don’t have to be like every other franchise and hire a 15-year-old that is the hot name of the day. As a fan, I don’t care about youth on the coaching staff, I don’t care how well someone interviews, I don’t care how well they do in a press conference, I just want wins.

P.S. If I wasn’t clear enough; I’m not minimizing the allegations against Henry Ruggs III. A woman died and if police are correct, Ruggs III is to blame. That is not to be forgotten, swept under the rug or ignored. The loss of innocent life is always more important than football.

I’m questioning what the Raiders are doing from a football standpoint and why? If they believe that Mayock brought bad people to the organization and it damaged the culture, he should have been fired already. There were plenty of opportunities to let him go this year, with a seemingly endless stream of issues.