McKenzie's Bold Hire Just Might Pay Off

You have to admire the gumption of new Raiders GM Reggie McKenzie hiring a guy to be head coach who has no head coaching experience and just one year experience as an NFL defensive coordinator. In checking under the hood however, Dennis Allen is not so much of an unknown. In fact, he is a football "lifer" as Al Davis would say. Allen was a star in high school as a defensive back. He was a four year starter at Texas A&M. You know a guy is pretty good if he starts all four years at a DI program. He had a very brief stint in an NFL training camp. Then Allen proceeded to work up the coaching ladder ever since.

You don't just get NFL jobs so Allen must have been recommended and had a great network of contacts to even get interviews along the way, never mind landing the jobs (which he did with the Falcons, Saints and Broncos). Then of course it's not just who you know but how well you say it. Allen is clearly an excellent communicator both to players and during the coaching interview process.

Reggie Mckenzie is not an easy man to impress. You can tell right away McKenzie is a no bullshit type of NFL executive. He walked into Raiders HQ, cleaned house with just a single command. Once Hue Jackson was fired as head coach that left every other coach on staff in limbo as to their fate, essentially letting them go without having to tell them so.

As for what he had in mind for a head coach instead of Hue, I am now seeing the logic of McKenzie. It's all about the defense. This has been the nagging flaw of the Raiders since the Super Bowl XXXVII hammering by the Bucs in 2003. This is the Achilles heel that wouldn't heal. Al Davis was the architect of the defense every year. In Raiders tradition, it was carefully worded by coaches and observers to try and disguise this reality but having no control of the defense was one of the conditions of being offered the head coaching job. The D was all up to Al and what he dictated to his defensive coordinator. This is a key reason that made it so hard to succeed as head coach of the Raiders as well.

Now, we have a defensive-minded head coach with fresh ideas and a direct, in your face demeanor to his players along with a soft spoken Texas drawl to the media. I think we can expect player accountability across the board. No more scholarships. Just this fact alone changes everything about the previous Raiders culture.

I'm willing to keep an open mind with Dennis Allen. For now, I have faith that McKenzie knows what he is doing. I have no reason not to believe it. Reggie was mentored by Ron Wolf during his tenure with Green Bay. Long time Raiders fans know Ron Wolf was the player personnel architect who built the great Raiders teams of the 70's (including the 1976 Super Bowl team) and put the pieces in place for more Raiders Super Bowls in the 80's. It was Ron Wolf's drafting recommendations to Al Davis that got it done, not Al. Look it up. Ron Wolf was one of the best personnel men in the business and now his influence has come full circle with the hiring moves of his protégé, Oakland Raiders GM Reggie McKenzie.

Of course now I have to admit Al's hiring of Ron Wolf to begin with was a stroke of genius. To that I agree.

A Man Named Smelley Pt II

Unbelievably, there is another man named Smelley. This guy is playing for Alabama or at least did. I thought Chris Smelley was the only unfortunate lad with such a distinction.

I don't quite understand why these smelley folk are both from the south. Is there a problem down there? Hey dumbass, CHANGE YOUR NAME. You have got to be kidding.

Fox Sports Dumps on Hue

The dismissal of Hue Jackson by the Raiders organization was a bit of a disappointment to the Raider Nation. We all knew Hue was full of bluster but he was a likeable and effectual head coach, despite the team losing down the stretch. We blame that on the ghost of Al Davis and his pathetic personnel decisions in building the defense, not Hue.

We also don't blame Hue for triggering the Carson Palmer trade. Palmer is a much better QB than Jason Campbell and who are we going to win with, Kyle Boller?

So, Jason Whitlock's article at FoxSports.com has got it all wrong. Whitlock pulls the race card which, quite frankly is horseshit. There was no racism implicit in the decision to fire Hue.

What is true is there are residual elements of Al Davis flunkies at Raiders HQ. So a good housecleaning is an excellent idea. But Hue is far from an Al Davis flunkie. The simple fact is the new Raiders brain trust wanted their own man as head coach. There is no reason to believe any different. But, it is apparent dolts like Mike Silver and Jason Whitlock just like to kick up dust for the sake of meeting their quota for writing articles. This way they give the impression they are earning their salary.

I'm even surprised at Rich Gannon's comments. He contradicts himself in the same breath, “What a stunner...I’m not surprised with the change.”

What is ridiculous about Whitlock's comments is it is obvious he does not even know the first thing about Hue. He cites Hue's "enablers" needing a reality check. If you look at the career of Hue Jackson you will see a guy that came out of obscurity. He played and then coached at the University of the Pacific. They don't even have a football program any more. The guy ascended to the NFL from that. His only enabler is a blue collar work ethic. Hue knows offense and as stated numerous times, Al Davis built the defense. The defense lost the games.

Nice try Jason Whitlock of FoxSports.com but you are just a minuscule step up from pansy ass Mike Silver and his lame Cal Bears who can't win a damn thing since Aaron Rodgers has moved on.

Mike Silver Starts the Mark Davis Era Off With Unwarranted Criticism

Mile Silver, currently of Yahoo Sports, is an experienced NFL writer. He's also a Bay Area resident and therefore, has had more than ample opportunity to get a read on the operations at Oakland Raiders HQ, specifically the demeanor of Al Davis.

I'm wondering why then, Silver saw fit to unleash abuse directed at Al's successor, his son Mark Davis. Silver targeted Mark Davis as being "in over his head" as the new CEO of an NFL franchise.

Considering the fact that Mark is a 50 something year old man and has been part of the Raiders organization his whole life, it should be obvious to anyone following the Raiders that Mark is not a football man. Mark has said nothing at all publicly on football operations his entire career until this past week. His duties within Raiders HQ are business-related. If he was a football man then we would have heard a lot more from him by now, don't you think?

Silver pokes fun at Mark based on a former employee's account of Al embarrassing his son in front of Raiders staff. I'm willing to lay odds the source that informed Silver of Al's harsh treatment of Mark was Randy Hanson. You may recall Hanson is a humiliated figure himself. The former low level Raiders coach had his jaw broken ostensibly by either former head coach Tom Laying Cable or furniture, depending on which account you believe.

Silver seems oblivious to the fact that Mark has never claimed to be an expert in football operations regardless of what his relationship with his father was. We don't know anything about the father and son relationship. Perhaps Al did try to mold Mark into a football man and just maybe, Al was disappointed in his progeny's lack of "can do" energy. Therefore, choosing to humiliate his son in front of others as a result. Who cares?

It's not for us to say and frankly, it's not very interesting. Mark is his own man, period. Mike Silver took journalistic liberties usually reserved for freewheeling bloggers like myself. Though Silver has a vaster audience and therefore showed irresponsible and underhanded tactics for a supposed professional.

We do know Mark is honest in his approach, relying on people like John Madden and other people close to the franchise for advice.

I'm not too impressed with Silver or Yahoo Sports in general. I'm surprised Yahoo has any budget at all to pay writers. I've always wondered where they get their money from since they gave nearly 6 billion away to Mark Cuban for technology they never used. Do you remember that Yahoo believed Cuban's broadcast.com was going to enable them to stream sports across the web? I do and it was as much of a joke then as it is today. All it served to do was make Cuban ultra wealthy.

We all know Cuban is laughing at Yahoo now as well he should. Yahoo sucks immense donkey balls.

Yahoo has no products to sell so where do they have the funds to pay Mike Silver whatever meager salary he makes? I wonder if he scrapes enough to pay his mortgage and stock up on PB&J to make it through each month.

Here's a photo of Mike wearing sunglasses, perhaps inspired by his role model, gossip extraordinaire Paris Hilton.

Mark Davis One Ups His Dad In His First Press Conference

Various people associated with the Raiders organization who have met Mark Davis all have said he is a nice guy. I never had any reason to doubt any of them. I was curious why he remained in the backdrop of the organization all these years (he's in his mid 50's now), never even a hint of him being involved in football operations. Clearly, he was no chip off the old block. Not only does he look nothing like his father, he does not share the same demeanor. Though, Mark does have an odd haircut.

It never seemed to me Mark had even the slightest interest in football period. I mean, imagine growing up around pro football but never caring enough to get involved except in a perfunctory sense. But now, with the hiring of a GM, his hand was forced into the limelight. For the very first time, the Semi-Reluctant New Mr. Davis has spoken to the media at large and fielded questions. This is indeed a new era in Raiders history.

Imagine Al Davis fielding questions in a polite, engaging manner. I think Al has tried hard at times to do that but it comes off as awkward. Al had an on again, off again contentious relationship with the media. I recall an interview he did with Paul MaGuire who was an old friend from the AFL days where Al was smiling and happy to be there. Otherwise, I think he dreaded talking to the media. Even when he spoke to Ice Cube in his documentary on the LA Raiders, Al was stiff lipped.

Mark Davis on the other hand showed right away he wants to be an ally to the fanbase.

DHB earns his keep with help from a man named Sanjay

A few years ago I openly questioned Undead Al's selection of Darrius Heyward-Bey in the first round of the 2009 draft in addition to giving him so many reps in games when he clearly was not ready for the pro level.  The guy looked horrible as we all know and we all labeled him DHBust.

Now of course, we all look foolish because not only is DHB producing, the guy was 20th overall in receiving yards in the entire NFL in 2011, outranking guys like Percy Harvin, DeSean Jackson, Dez Bryant, etc.  See for yourself.

I'm not saying DHB is great by any stretch. He has a long way to go as far as consistency and polishing his game but it answers a fundamental question I had in 2009.  Undead Al demoted Fred Biletnikoff from WR coach (maybe Freddy was just not cut out for the job any more), then for some odd reason Al decided James Lofton was not the answer either.  But to replace these hall of famers with some guy named Sanjay Lal did not make any sense.  Lal had very little in the way of an impressive resume.  He was however, a quality control assistant on the Raiders staff already.  Apparently he impressed Al who bumped him up the ladder.

Lal has survived three coaching changes and clearly has gotten Heyward-Bey on the right track.  Who would've thunk it?  Not me.  I was in favor of the Raiders taking a much needed left tackle in that year's draft.  As it turns out, the highly regarded Eugene Monroe taken by the Jaguars in the first round that year has been a resounding disappointment.

Hey, at least I can admit when I am wrong. 

Now all the Raiders need is a few more decent receivers.  I have just about had it with Chaz Schilens.  Some guys are just snakebit with injuries.  It's time to cut our losses with Chaz.  I also don't think Louis Murphy has progressed and it seems pretty obvious T.J. Houshmandzadeh is out of fuel.

I really don't think Kevin Boss was worth all that money to play TE.  He's ok but now he's damaged goods and he really didn't do too much this past season.  Neither did Brandon Meyers who seems less and less important after a decent pre-season as a rookie backup TE.

Some more depth at WR and TE and another breakout season from DHB will have me believing in our offense for a change.  I'm still not sold on Jared Veldheer at LT but the OL as a whole has played a lot better than it has in years past and who can argue with having a QB as experienced as Carson Palmer.

So to sum up my impressions, nice job, er, uh, Sanjay and congrats to DHB for earning the respect of the Raider Nation.

Everyone Wants to Blame Bresnahan

Raiders coaches, fans, haters and Raiders players themselves can all agree on one thing.  The defense just does not get the job done.  This has been a problem for many years.  We can talk alignments and strategy all day but it comes down to personnel decisions of years past catching up with reality.

Al Davis signed several players to big money deals that did not work out.  I have written about this in an article Raiders Defensive Line By the Numbers.  We don't even half to rehash all of the horrible signings Al is responsible for.  DeAngelo Hall, Gibril Wilson, the list goes on.  There is no denying all of that spending to marginal players (with the exception of Richard Seymour) has hurt not only the Raiders spending ability but their flexibility in bringing in good players to backfill the mistakes.

With just a few exceptions such as Tyvon Branch and a resurgent Michael Huff, there has not been any real consistency on defense. What happened to Lamarr Houston?  He was an animal for a while and is now invisible.  Injuries have taken their toll no doubt.  Matt Shaughnessy was doing well and has been out.  Trevor Scott has not gotten the playing time after showing promise as a sackmaster.  I will also admit Tommy Kelly has lived up to his contract after all.  I doubted his big money signing when it happened as did most everyone else but I will eat some crow.  He has played well.

But Tommy Kelly and Richard Seymour is not enough.  Signing a flameout in Aaron Curry is not going to cut it.  A shutdown corner like Nnamdi was not enough.  Bringing in a great former player in Rod Woodson to coach the secondary was not enough to salvage a crumbling defensive backfield.  You'll get some decent plays here and there from guys like Matt Gioradano and (ugh) Stanford Routt when he is not negating his successes with penalties. I'm not so sure Mike Mitchell is anything but a bull in a china shop.  You can change defensive coordinators and alignments.  You can blitz more.  None of it will change the lack of depth and talent to compensate for bad personnel decisions by Al Davis.

What is worse is no matter how hard the front office has tried to fix this such as drafting Rolando McClain in the first round, there are just too many holes to fill on defense every year. So if you are looking for someone to blame, don't point the finger at Chuck Bresnahan.  The guy is as adequate a defensive coordinator as there is in the business.  The problem is/was with Al Davis.  Just as it always has been.

The franchise has a chance to fix this but not in next year's draft.  The Raiders have sparse picks to be had there. They have no choice but to mine the waiver wire and see what they can haul as far as trades and free agency.

Is that really a tattoo...?

I've seen some really clever Raiders tattoos over the years but I don't think I have ever seen one of the...Oakland Coliseum.
Is that for real?

Wow, from the look of those grilling tongs, I am going to guess the guy had the tat done to memorialize all of the great tailgating he has experienced in the parking lot. He doesn't look old enough to have lived through the glory days of the franchise but who knows. I applaud him for his devotion to the Raiders. Though, I wonder if he realizes the Coliseum is actually run by the City of Oakland and Alameda County, not the Raiders.

Photo credit to Al Reyes of Bay Area Sports Drive.

Do you visit the comcast sports site? Me either

Last year or maybe the year prior, I read about well regarded sports columnist Ray Ratto leaving the San Francisco Chronicle to go to Comcast SportsNet. On one hand, I can understand job change motivation. More money (presumably), maybe try something a little different. With Comcast you obviously get the visibility of being a personality on sports talk TV. For Ray, he is a master of words. His columns are hilarious and with very few exceptions I can recall, he's the most interesting perspective in the sports section of the bygone newspaper era.

On the other hand however, I don't think it was a simple transition of media formats. Ray has additionally made the commitment to tweeting on twitter and boy is it lame. Through no fault of his own, Twitter is lame. Ray Ratto's strength is stringing sentences together. This falls completely flat in twitter format.

I realized a few days ago that I missed Ray's columns so I did some sleuthing and eventually found him buried on the Comcast Sports' web page. I can't imagine anyone visits that site regularly for sports info. Not that the info is any worse than other sites but it's just low profile despite Comcast's big name. I would be curious to see the page view stats.

I can tell the CSN people tried to build a team of sports writers on their staff to compete with local sports coverage. But, I don't think it's really very effective. Especially so when they see fit to promote a second string guy like Paul Gutierrez from the Sacramento Bee.

Who is going to be impressed by Paul Gutierrez? And it doesn't take much to know he's not an insider of the Raiders. He's just a "newspaper man" (as Al Davis labeled such folk).

By the way, in case you are wondering why CSN does not promote Ray Ratto as a Raiders insider, it's because A) Ray would not want to be a Raiders insider, B) Ray has had a LOT of fun taking loquacious jabs at Al Davis over the years. Raider fans know this so such a promotion would not go over well.

Paul Gutierrez? Who?

Does Anyone Really Take Mike Florio Seriously?

I remember when there was no ESPN or NFL Network. Local newspapers usually covered local teams but you had to wait a week to read about last week's overall NFL news. This came in the form of magazines or newspapers that focused on NFL coverage. The Sporting News was one of those publications but it was never a very good read. In fact, it was always incorrect in their predictions and analysis no matter who the writer was. The Sporting News was and always has been a hack publication.

It comes as no surprise that Mike Florio's entire professional writing experience as far as football coverage is concerned, was with The Sporting News. This is a lawyer who lives in West Virginia and decide to set up his own very poorly designed web site called "Pro Football Talk" where he just spews his opinions. No crime there but Mike only discusses his moral perspective of the NFL and players. He has no other angle other than wagging his finger and pointing out how players crossed the line of ethical behavior. He is far more concerned with what goes on in players' personal lives than he is about football. This is indisputable and obvious.

It would be hard to make a case in favor or many pro football players being model citizens. Though, most football fans are not into gossip. We just like to enjoy the sport. What a letdown it is when readers discover Mike Florio comes off as a skinny little assclown who doesn't even know the game very well. He's just the moralist police. MSNBC for reasons unknown, hitched their wagon to the PFT site but it's really just Florio and a few dweebs who chime in useless articles every so often.

It's one thing to have fun as a blogger or talk football with your friends or acquaintances but to consider yourself a professional sports writer because you have a moral stance is a very unfortunate symptom of the times. Deadspin likes to highlight the flaws of professional athletes as well but their articles are usually funny and don't project a moralist view, just an intent to embarrass their target.

One time, I was taking a dump and reading PFT on my phone. Hey, it's a downtime activity, right? It so happened Florio posted a happy birthday to his wife so it was at the very top of the article list. What I read put everything in perspective about who Mike Florio really is. First he wishes his wife a happy birthday. Then he compliments her by saying she "never complains" that he is never around or "working" late. So why are you married you imbecile? What is the point of acknowledging your wife as part of your "work"? Posting blog articles is your work? Your "work" is more important than your wife?

When I need a good laugh I think about Mike Florio and the lameness of his existence. At the same time I feel sorry for his wife who apparently does not know any better but to be a submissive, background component to am NFL moralist police blogger.