Raiders' Antonio Pierce, Champ Kelly could have interim titles removed, but full interview process required

Even if Mark Davis knows he'll keep his interim coach and GM, it will take weeks for the process to be complete

The 6-8 Las Vegas Raiders are still hanging around in the playoff hunt with interim head coach Antonio Pierce and interim general manager Champ Kelly. And if they keep looking like they did in Thursday night's 63-21 win against the Chargers, the interim titles may be removed entirely.

But even if owner Mark Davis wants to move Pierce and/or Kelly into a permanent role, he will still have to go through a full interview process, league sources tell CBS Sports.

The NFL views the Raiders head coach and GM roles as being vacant, after Davis fired Josh McDaniels and Dave Ziegler on Halloween. League rules do not permit vacant primary positions to be filled without the process. So if Davis knows at the end of the season that he's keeping the interims, it will take weeks for the process to be complete.

Teams can interview general manager candidates as soon as the regular season ends. And teams must conduct in-person interviews with at least two external candidates who are either people of color or women.

The same rules apply to head-coaching candidates. But teams cannot conduct in-person interviews with candidates currently employed by other teams until after the divisional round of the playoffs in late January.

The point of these guidelines is rooted in the Rooney Rule, which helps promote diversity in the top ranks of teams. Even though Pierce and Kelly are both Black men, rules are rules. It would be frowned upon for a team to circumvent the rules to promote a white interim candidate, and so the rules would still be applied for a Black candidate.

The Raiders also cannot use the loophole the Buccaneers showed the world exists in 2021. That year, Bruce Arians resigned as head coach in March, and the team named Todd Bowles as head coach without interviewing any external candidates. That's because the Rooney Rule guidelines go until March 1.

But a league source confirmed to CBS Sports that the Raiders must go through the entire process.

The scuttlebutt at the league meetings in Irving, Texas, earlier in the week was that Davis was inclined to keep interim Kelly.  Pierce, still proving himself at the top level of coaching, had more work to do.

But a convincing victory, against a division rival that wound up firing its coach, in what was the largest margin of victory for an interim head coach in modern NFL history, only helped Pierce's case. Pierce is now 3-3 as the interim coach with games against the Chiefs, Colts and Broncos remaining.

Kelly impressed Davis in the interview two years ago, and Davis ultimately had to have him as the assistant general manager under Ziegler.

Davis knows he needs to get these hirings right. He has admitted both publicly and privately his failures as an owner when it comes to the on-field product, sources say.

Davis' father, Al, passed away in October 2011 and Mark Davis took over. Since the start of the 2011 season, the Raiders have a .409 winning percentage, which ranks 27th in the 32-team league.

Sources believe Davis has felt a measure of regret not keeping Rich Bisaccia following the 2021 season. Davis will want a leader-of-men type of coach, and Pierce has fit that bill from the moment he took over.