Some of you may not know this. Others of you may have forgotten. But on the eve of another matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the visiting Las Vegas Raiders, it seems like a good time to remind you that despite their abysmal record, the home team has a lot of respect for the visitors.

While the Raiders sit in last place in the AFC West, a familiar spot for them for a few years, er, decades, the team is led by head coach Antonio Pierce. And if the Chiefs had their way, he would have been coaching for them for some time.

Pierce is a popular former player and respected young coach in NFL circles, and that showed last season when the Raiders played heavily for him in an interim role and the organization believed in him enough to drop “interim” from his title . Even though the Raiders are now 2-9 and a mile out of the playoffs, the coaching staff isn’t their primary concern.

Just ask Steve Spagnuolo and the Chiefs what they think of Pierce for trying to hire him the least once in recent seasons. In 2019, the Chiefs reshuffled their defensive staff by bringing in Spags to replace Bob Sutton as defensive coordinator. Spags did his best to convince Pierce to become his linebackers coach, but he had only been coaching under Herm Edwards at Arizona State for one season and decided to remain on staff there.

After losing Pierce, the Chiefs offered the job to Kentucky DC Matt House. A few seasons later, in 2022, the Chiefs were in need of a linebackers coach again when House left to train under Brian Kelly at LSU and Pierce’s name was mentioned again in connection with the opening.

There’s no telling if the Chiefs extended an offer, but Pierce had resigned from ASU at the time due to recruiting violations. He ended up signing on to coach the same position with the Raiders. Two years later, here we are at Arrowhead.

So far, Pierce has had mixed results against the Chiefs, but this week he might have tried his most direct approach yet and called his team the worst in football – or at least acknowledged that narrative heading into Friday’s game. We’ll see how his players react.