Raiders coach Antonio Pierce on relationship with new GM Tom Telesco: We have to 'check our egos at the door'

Tom Telesco's stellar run with the Chargers meant he wouldn't be unemployed for very long.

His unemployment lasted roughly five weeks before the Raiders scooped him up, pairing the veteran personnel chief with young coach Antonio Pierce to begin a new era in Las Vegas -- an era that began, coincidentally, after Pierce's team dropped 63 points on Telesco's Chargers, prompting the general manager's in-season departure.

"I told him I was going for 71," Pierce joked Wednesday in regard to his first interaction with Telesco. "We were going to go for two, but I'm sorry. Go ahead."

The new partnership mixes three decades of front office experience -- including the last 11 years spent as Chargers general manager -- with the fire of a former player-turned-coach who produced instant results, winning five of nine games as interim coach in Las Vegas. It isn't unique, but it is intriguing, especially considering it's a creation of a Raiders franchise that has tried and failed to manufacture winning culture with past regimes, with Patriots products Josh McDaniels and Dave Ziegler being the most recent.

Instead of trying to break a branch off a winning tree and plant it as its own in the desert, the Raiders are trusting their eyes and hoping it works.

"Me and Tom had never met prior," Pierce said. "Obviously, I had watched his body of work with the San Diego Chargers and then, lastly, with the Los Angeles Chargers. Obviously, when we met, when he came in the other day, I could see that he was genuine. He was poised, he was calm. He had a plan. He presented it. It was well thought out.

"I think as this relationship grows like anything else, it's going to have its ups and downs. We got to be adults and grown men about it. We got to hash it