Raiders adding one-time Super Bowl champ to staff

Antonio Pierce has made a point to surround himself with experience on staff. The inexperienced Raiders HC has already hired Marvin Lewis as an assistant. Another former NFL leader will head to Las Vegas to join the recently elevated coach.

The Raiders plan to hire Joe Philbin as a senior offensive assistant, NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport reports. The Dolphins HC from 2012-15, Philbin was most recently an analyst with Ohio State. He served as the Cowboys’ offensive line coach from 2020-22. Like Lewis, Philbin is a former HC with extensive experience in the NFL.

Philbin has put in 19 years as an NFL staffer, being a coordinator and a head coach. The Packers also installed Philbin as their interim HC following Mike McCarthy‘s 2018 firing. Pierce, who has also relied on former Giants HC Tom Coughlin as an advisor since replacing Josh McDaniels last year, is certainly making a point to load up on veteran staffers. While Lewis is a defensive-minded coach, Philbin’s career has come on the offensive side.

Taking a chance on an atypical HC hire in Pierce, the Raiders will backstop him with veteran presences in Lewis and Philbin. The latter does not quite match Lewis’ 27 years of experience, but he has been in the league more recently. Lewis, 65, has not held a full-time NFL job since the Bengals fired him following the 2018 season. Philbin, 62, ventured to Dallas following his second Green Bay stint. The Cowboys fired him after the 2022 season; the venture to Ohio State marked Philbin’s first work at the college level since 2002.

Philbin, of course, is best known for his Miami tenure. The Dolphins went 26-30 under the mild-mannered HC, firing him (and naming Dan Campbell interim HC) early in the 2015 season. Philbin’s Miami time overlapped with Ryan Tannehill‘s first years in the NFL, but the former became an HC candidate following a run as OC during Aaron Rodgers and Brett Favre‘s QB1 periods in Wisconsin. As OC under McCarthy from 2007-11, Philbin collected a Super Bowl ring. He was on Green Bay’s staff for Favre’s bounce-back season that ended in an overtime loss — to Coughlin’s Giants — in the NFC championship game and was in place as Rodgers took over, serving as the Pack’s OC during the first of the future Hall of Famer’s four MVP seasons.

Both Philbin and OC Luke Getsy have Packers pasts, but they did not work together in Green Bay. Getsy arrived in Wisconsin during Philbin’s Miami years and was Mississippi State’s OC during Philbin’s Packers return in 2018. Regardless, the Getsy and Philbin additions certainly does give Pierce’s first Las Vegas offense a Green Bay vibe.

The Raiders have also been connected to Hue Jackson, and they had been expected to add the former Oakland HC to Pierce’s staff. But the hire is not yet official. A senior assistant job would have made sense for Jackson, but it is possible that is no longer be in the cards thanks to this Philbin addition. Jackson, who has not coached in the NFL since his infamous Browns HC stay, was the Raiders’ HC in 2011.