Personnel-wise, the team might not be ready to compete at the highest level, mostly due to their subpar quarterback situation.

However, new head coach Antonio Pierce wants this team to feel like they can beat anybody, and there’s only one way to do so.

The Raiders need to trust one another like family; they must care about who’s lining up next to them.

That’s why he’s taking the players to Costa Mesa, California, to spend the next 18 days.

Talking about his preparation for training camp, Pierce claimed that the players used to do stuff like this when he played for team bonding, and he wants this group to be ‘the tightest group of Raiders that the organization has ever seen” (via Paloma Villicana).

Antonio Pierce is getting ready for his first training camp as head coach of the @Raiders

He’s taking his team to Costa Mesa, CA for “team bonding” for the next 18 days.

“I want us to be the tightest group of Raiders that hopefully this organization has seen.”

Pierce hopes that this will help the team avoid all distractions and focus strictly on football.

This is the kind of philosophy and approach that made every single one of his players vouch for him to become the next head coach.

The Raiders’ locker room seemed broken when Josh McDaniels was there, up to the point where the players had a meeting to confront him.

Pierce is like them and he knows how to communicate with them, and that’s something you either got or you don’t.

On paper, the Raiders might not be a powerhouse.

But a team that plays together and rallies off each other is always a dangerous team.