As a Las Vegas Raiders fan for the past 23 years, we as a fan base and the organization have dealt with a lot of disappointment. Since losing to Tampa Bay in Super Bowl XXXVII, the Raiders have made the playoffs twice and lost in the wild card round both times. In 2021, John Gruden was fired in the middle of the season, and special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia took over as head coach, which I thought was an interesting decision. Usually, it’s the offensive or defensive coordinator who takes over, but Bisaccia turned out to be perfect for the role. By all accounts, the players loved him, and they went 7-5 and made the playoffs after a very entertaining regular season. They lost to the Cincinnati Bengals in the first round (give an assist to the officials), but I was sure Bisaccia would be hired on as the full-time head coach the following season. For some odd reason, Mark Davis decided to hire Josh McDaniels, which turned out to be a horrible decision. McDaniels is a horrible coach, who’s only been made to look good by working under Bill Belichick and having Tom Brady on his team, so to no one’s surprise, McDaniels sucked and was let go in the middle of this past season. Again, Davis made an interesting move and made linebackers coach Antonio Pierce the interim head coach, which turned out to be perfect. When McDaniels was fired, my imminent thought was that they could bring Bisaccia back, but then Pierce gave his first press conference as head coach. The man made me want to run for a wall for him, and the players seemed to feel the same way. Under Pierce, the Raiders went 5-4 and were actually in the playoff hunt until losing to the Indianapolis Colts in their second to last game of the season. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that the Raiders HAVE to hire Pierce as the full-time head coach. In his nine games as head coach, the team played better than they ever did under McDaniels. Even in their four losses, they were still competitive; their only loss by more than one score was to the Kansas City Chiefs, 31-17, but don’t forget they actually had a 14-0 lead in that game. Their only other losses were to Miami, a playoff team, the Colts who were a win against Houston away from being a playoff team, and Minnesota, who was in the playoff hunt until the last game of the season. They went into Kansas City and beat the Chiefs, which never happens, and hung 63 points on the Los Angeles Chargers, which is definitely something you don’t see every week. They played very well under Pierce and let’s not forget, the Raiders were starting a fourth-round rookie at quarterback, Aiden O’Connell. If Davis decides to let Pierce walk, I’m not going to say I won’t be a fan anymore, but I’ll be extremely disappointed. More important than that, it sounds like the players would be extremely disappointed as well, with Maxx Crosby, Devante Adams, and Josh Jacobs all expressing their support for Pierce. Pierce is what the Raiders need, and I really hope Davis realizes that as well. Please, Mark, learn from your mistake of not hiring Bisaccia and hire AP.

Every sport has its “unwritten rules”, but to me, it seems like baseball has the most. Luckily the sport is getting away from a lot of the unwritten rules, but some of the older players still hold onto them, and to some extent, some of them still exist. The rules that still exist have to do with when a team is getting blown out, in which you’re not supposed to steal a base, or if a position player is pitching, you’re supposed to not try to do anything against them. The rules that some players still hold onto, more specifically the older ones, are that bat flipping and celebrating home runs aren’t allowed. Also, some pitchers think that if you look at them, that’s breaking some sort of unwritten rule as well. To me, all of this is ridiculous, and most unwritten rules in sports shouldn’t exist. Some are necessary, like in a hockey fight how a player shouldn’t continue pounding another player into the ice if they’re down or injured, but most exist because a lot of professional athletes, specifically in baseball, are huge crybabies. There’s a simple solution to not giving players a situation where they would break an unwritten rule; just don’t do something that puts them in that situation. If you don’t want a player to flip their bat and pimp a home run, don’t give up the home run. If you don’t want a player to hit a home run off of a position player when you’re down 10-0, don’t put a position player in to pitch. If you don’t want a player to steal when you’re down 10-0, get a better catcher that can throw players out. For the most part, breaking unwritten rules results from one team giving the other team a reason to break said rules, and if you don’t want that to happen, don’t put that player or team in the position to do so. The larger problem with this is how players handle other players breaking an unwritten rule. The pitcher, who can throw a solid projectile over 90 miles per hour, throws said projectile at a player’s head or back, something that can result in serious injury or, in extreme cases, death. While it didn’t kill him and it was unintentional, baseball fans know about Adam Greenberg, who basically had his career ended after taking a pitch to the back of his head. He attempted a comeback, but the pitch that hit him caused him to have to deal with vertigo symptoms, he eventually had to give up on his dream. That was something that was a freak accident and completely unintentional, but these pitchers who get their feelings hurt like a little league player after they throw a bad pitch, something that is their fault, and throw a ball at someone’s head and intentionally try to hurt them, really need to look at themselves in the mirror and evaluate their approach. Instead of getting mad and intentionally trying to hurt someone, maybe try working at getting better and not throwing a pitch to give up a home run. While, thankfully, this unwritten rule stuff is going away, it still exists for some reason, and it’ll be great for the game once it’s out completely.

The fighting in hockey debate has intensified in the past 10 years or so, especially with the advances in concussion research. While fights are dangerous and have the potential to cause serious injury, I think they’re a necessary part of the game. I started watching hockey in the early 2000s, which was at the tail end of the era of the traditional enforcer. Guys who were on a team specifically to fight, like Tie Domi or Rob Ray, were at the end of their careers, and the National Hockey League was evolving to a league where to survive, you needed to do more than throw punches. Guys like Geroges Larqaue, Donald Brashear, and Derek Boogaard played into the 2010s, but by 2015 or 2016, those types of players were relegated to the minors or playing in Europe. Now, buys like Ryan Reaves, Patrick Maroon, and Tom Wilson are considered the heavyweights of the NHL, but they can do more than just fight. They can skate, kill penalties, and chip in on the scoreboard from time to time, which is what “enforcers” need to do now to stay in the league. I love the way the game has evolved, and even though I enjoy watching a hockey fight, I’m happy we’re out of the era of teams having bar bouncers on skates in their lineups. To me, when there are too many fights in a game like the Rangers/Capitals game a couple of years ago, it just mucks up the game and slows it down. Having said that, as I said before, I think fighting is a necessary part of the game. If I’m building a team, I’d love to have a Tom Wilson or Ryan Reaves in my lineup, because skill players need to be protected. If I’m a player and I know that if I take a cheap shot at a skill player someone is going come after me and pound my face into the ice, I’d think twice about taking that cheap shot. Yes, the referees and league are there to police the game, but I don’t think they’re a big enough threat. Yes, if a player throws their elbow into a skill player’s head they can get a major penalty and be suspended for a few games, but that’s it. If I’m on the ice and know that if I decide to throw my elbow into Auston Matthew’s head, not only am I going to be penalized, fined, and suspended, but also Ryan Reaves is going to come out and punch my head off, I’d be less likely to do it. Fighting is dangerous and causes injuries; there’s no doubt about that. The punches may not be the most dangerous part, although Todd Fedoruk may say otherwise after Boogaaard caved his face in. A lot of injuries come from the two combatants falling; Don Sanderson, a player for a minor league team in Canada, passed away after sustaining a head injury from falling during a fight. While playing for the Montreal Canadiens, George Parros was knocked unconscious after falling during a fight. So, yes, there is a lot of danger in fighting, but I think there’s certainly danger if fighting were taken out of the game. Maybe, without the threat of having to fight an enforcer, certain players wouldn’t think twice about delivering a dangerous check to a star player, or any player for that matter. That fighting is necessary is my opinion, and it seems to be that of NHL players as well, since 98% of them want to keep fighting in the game, according to a poll done 10 years or so ago. The truth, though, is that we don’t know what would happen if fighting was taken out of the game. It’s never been that way, so we just don’t know. Maybe injuries would go up because of cheap shots, or with the absence of fighting, maybe they would go down; we just don’t know. Starting this season, the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League banned fighting, which may turn out to be a good thing. Though it is a junior league, maybe without fighting it will be a good example of the potential consequences. Everything is hypothetical right now, but I see fighting as a necessary part of the game, I find it entertaining, and I hope it never exits the game. By the way, there’s a wonderful documentary called “Ice Guardians” from 2016, which includes interviews of various past and present enforcers. I’d highly suggest checking it out.