Josh McDaniels Ruined His Kids' Halloween With News He Got Fired, While Antonio Pierce is Winning Hearts and Minds Everywhere

Nick Cammett. Getty Images.

I'm not one to ever toot my own horn. I don't consider myself a genius. I leave it to others to use that word, while acknowledging my talent and magnetism. All I am is a guy who pays attention and can identify a pattern before anyone else. But I can tell you that being right all the time never gets old. 

For instance, when I promised you we were only in the early stages of hearing Josh McDaniels get trashed:

There was just too much going on in Las Vegas for this to stop with Renfrow. The desert sands out there are soaked red with bad blood. And his complaints were just the opening salvo of the withering fire to come out of the Raiders. Which begs the question of where this little tidbit comes from:

Source - Josh McDaniels called his kids home from trick-or-treating Tuesday night to break the news. He had just been fired as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders.

The tenor of a fun Halloween night had quickly spun into the cold reality of the coaching business.

Raiders owner Mark Davis cleaned house, axing McDaniels and general manager Dave Ziegler around dinnertime in Vegas. The team announced the decision around 1 a.m. on the East Coast, stunning coaches and executives around the NFL.

Holy moly. I get that losing your job is on the short list of worst things that can happen to you. I got laid off once. With a baby on the way weeks after signing my first mortgage, and I wouldn't wish that experience on my worst enemy. There's never not a terrible time for it to happen to you. 

But gee whiz, fella. Why commit the party foul of breaking your kids' hearts in the middle of one of the best nights of the year for them? Couldn't you just let them finish their rounds in innocent, blissful ignorance? Let them experience the simply joy of coming home, dumping out their bags, sorting out the good stuff (Reese's, Snickers) from the bad (the wrapped up bag of Jordan almonds that some cheapskate repurposed from leftover Easter candy), and start their annual sugar rush that will make it impossible to get ready for school in the morning? Then just break it to them then, when they're already crashing from that high and can't be any more miserable? 

I suppose an argument could be made McDaniels was worried they'd find out some other way. But if you're in the sort of area where a neighbor says, "I love you costumes! You all look great! So I hear your dad just got shitcanned," then you should've moved a long time ago. Not even Linus ruined Sally's Halloween this much. And convinced her to sleep in a pumpkin patch waiting for a demonic gourd that he made up in his own mentally ill brain to show up.

Some days on the kids' calendar are simply meant to be kept pure and untainted. Hell, on Christmas Eve George Bailey found out he was going to jail because of a mistake his dementia patient uncle made. And he kept that bad juju to himself, went off and got drunk like a good father. And all children get a LOT fewer good Halloweens than they have Christmases. 

Far be it for me to tell the McDaniels how to raise their children. I have no doubt they thought they were doing the right thing. And it's probably the business of nobody except them and sports comedy bloggers. But the world is going to take this story and juxtapose it with this item about his replacement, Antonio Pierce, who has wasted no time winning everybody over:

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“[The practice squad players have] got a Raiders uniform. Those guys bust their tails. Every man’s in there. You’re on the team, you’re part of the team, you’re in there on game day… the way we practice those two days and what we ask them to do, they deserve to be on our sideline, they earned that right.”

And so we see your classic scenario where a team replaces a stern, disciplinarian with a players coach. The taskmaster with the kindhearted, considered guy. The Bad Cop with the Good Cop. The sort of guy who buzzkills his kids' Trick-or-Treating with his sad, depressing news with the one who embraces his marginal, roster bubble players as integral parts of his football team. 

Eventually, things will very likely go tits up for Coach Pierce as well. It happens to the very best; it's just a matter of how long it takes. But for the foreseeable future, he's going to be bathed in the warm glow of good press for two reasons. He seems like a very likeable human being. And he's not Josh McDaniels. 

If Pierce has kids, I bet he let them Trick-or-Treat way past dark and stay up past midnight. He's strikes me as just that sort of dad. Now we just have to wait a few weeks to find out if McDaniels wrecked Thanksgiving as well.