On Monday, Dave Zigeler and Josh McDaniels were formally introduced as the newest members of the Raiders organization.
Ziegler, of course, is the general manager, while McDaniels is the head coach.
When taking questions from the media, both were asked what they learned and will take from working for Bill Belichick.
Here's what they said.
McDaniels: “Oh, boy. It’s a long list. Look, I’m blessed and fortunate to have had the experiences that I have. I started in personnel (with the Patriots) back in 2001 when (my wife) Laura made quite a bit more money than I was making, and (Belichick) made you develop in every area as a professional in this environment.
"He gave us the opportunity to see the scouting side. I had the opportunity to work on defense, then he flipped me over to the offensive side and had me coach the quarterback. I saw the game in a lot of different perspectives, and what I felt like was that was a really well-rounded approach, as you’re growing up in this game, to have some kind of understanding of what is the grading system? What does it mean? How do they attack us on offense when you’re on defense? And then flipping it over to the offensive side and understanding that, and then tying it all together with situational football and game management, which is obviously a critical component to winning every game in the NFL. You lose a lot more games than you win in this league, and if you can do some of those things really well, obviously that’s going to impact your opportunity to win. There’s so many that I couldn’t name them all, but he gave me an opportunity to be well-rounded coming out of the organization, and I’m very grateful for that.”
Ziegler: “I could have a laundry list of things, but I would say the one thing that sticks out to me that Bill taught me is Bill is a forward-thinker. It’s not just about a decision in the moment. It’s about how one decision can impact four different things. One decision can impact what we’re going to do in 2022, in 2023, and just to really have an understanding of how decisions can impact different parts of the organization and can impact your team.
"And I think the other about Bill that doesn’t get talked about much, and it goes along with the forward-thinking piece, is that Bill is really dedicated to evaluating every single thing that we do at every point of the year and looking at it critically and then evolving and trying to figure out how we’re going to get these things better. Even if the end result was a Super Bowl, or even if the end result was a great trade or a great player acquisition or whatever it may be, every decision that we do here and all of our processes, just to evaluate those things critically — what went well, what didn’t go well and how we can improve it. And I think that’s critical to not staying stagnant and to always making sure you’re moving forward with the best ideas and the best processes.”
