Champ Kelly and Antonio Pierce are the faces of the Las Vegas Raiders’ comeback.

HENDERSON, Nevada: During a Las Vegas Raiders team dinner in August, Antonio Pierce was looking for a seat when Champ Kelly offered him an open chair. This led to the chance conversation.

While enjoying a meal of caviar, tuna tartare, and Wagyu beef at a chic beachside restaurant in Malibu, California, assistant general manager Kelly and Raiders linebackers coach Pierce grew close through conversation about the sport they both adore. They discussed their ideas about their futures as executives of organizations for over three hours as they explored every facet of team building.

They had no idea that they wouldn’t have to wait long.

Owner of the Raiders Mark Davis fired general manager David Ziegler and coach Josh McDaniels in November, appointing Pierce as the team’s acting head coach and Kelly as general manager in place of them. The Raiders have three African Americans holding the three most traditionally significant NFL positions at the club level, which is a first in league history, in addition to team president Sandra Douglass Morgan, the first Black woman to hold that position in the NFL.

The Raiders had Tom Flores, the first Latino head coach to win a Super Bowl, and Art Shell, the first African American coach in the league’s modern era, both under the direction of Davis’ father Al, who owned the team at the time. Former Raiders CEO Amy Trask held one of the top positions for women in professional sports. In this regard, Mark Davis further enhanced the franchise’s history by appointing Black former general manager Reggie McKenzie. There are hints that the new Raiders leaders might stick around after this campaign.

People inside the organization and around the league told Andscape that the Raiders are definitely in a much better place than they were before Davis cleaned house when they take on the Chiefs on Christmas Day at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. The Raiders’ organizational culture has been praised for its sudden improvement thanks to Pierce and Kelly’s collaboration in calming down players who were fed up with ineffective McDaniels and felt abandoned by the front office.

This has been the first time in a while that Pierce and Kelly have steered the football operation in one direction at the Raiders’ team headquarters. The truth is that under the Pierce-Kelly administration, tensions are significantly lower than they were under the McDaniels and Ziegler administration, and the turnaround’s seeds were planted before appetizers were served.