Johnathan Abram used Instagram in Las Vegas to lash out at Josh McDaniels, posting that the former Raiders coach “ruined everything we built” and “should be arrested for sabotaging the organization.” The message was paired with a photo of Allegiant Stadium, turning a personal grievance into a public shot at a coach whose tenure has already become a cautionary tale.
Abram is not speaking from a distance. The safety was released by the Raiders midway through McDaniels’s first season, after being selected in the first round, 27th overall, in the 2019 draft by Jon Gruden. That connection gives the post its force: this is not a generic criticism from a former player, but anger from someone who watched the roster change from the inside and then lost his place in it.
McDaniels arrived in 2022 and lasted a season and a half before being fired, a brief run that left enough frustration behind for former players to keep picking at it. Abram’s post also lands after a winding end to his own career path. He appeared in 19 more games for three more teams after his release, and he played his last game in New Orleans in October of 2024.
The friction in Abram’s accusation is that it points to sabotage without spelling out the method. He did not lay out a list of decisions in the post, but his own exit during McDaniels’s first season gives the grievance a clear personal edge. The complaint is less about one play or one roster move than about a season that, from Abram’s view, undid what had been built before McDaniels took over.
McDaniels spent the 2023 season away before returning to the Patriots under Mike Vrabel, and that team reached the Super Bowl last season before losing to the Seattle Seahawks, whose offense was led by Klint Kubiak. For the Raiders, the post revives a familiar question about how much damage a short coaching run can leave behind — and for Abram, it reads like a final verdict on a coach he believes broke more than he fixed.
