Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis must be furious, and even more so since he writes the checks for this six-win football team. With that said, we are now days away from the dreaded “Black Monday.”
All season long a virtual “whos-who” rotation of the head coach, the quarterback, and the offensive coordinator stepped up and said, “place the blame on me.” With days left in the 2017 campaign, it will soon be time for the blame to be officially placed and possibly heads rolling.
“Chucky” and the Raiders
Rumors have been swirling around Jon Gruden. With his youngest son a senior in high school, he could possibly be getting back to the work he loves having fulfilled his role as a dad.
While the Monday Night Football broadcast booth has been good to Gruden, both in terms of popularity and to the tune of $6.5/M per year, the coaching bug never left.
Lately, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers organization had professed interest but were the Glazer’s really going to reopen the franchise doors and back up the Brinks truck and pay more for the man they tossed out on his rear eight years ago? The latest reports had it as a two-team race between the Buccaneers and the Raiders, with the Bucs allegedly the favorites in this fluid situation until news broke today.
Bucs sticking with Dirk Koetter for 2018 https://t.co/PmxmMdimiD
— Rick Stroud (@NFLSTROUD) December 29, 2017
Davis’s Dilemma?
With Las Vegas looming on the horizon Mr. Davis doesn’t have the luxury of sitting around and hoping history isn’t repeating itself with his head coach. Jack del Rio is owed at least $18/18.5M on his new 4-year deal and many believe this factor alone is enough to contribute to him staying with the team for at least another year.
However, consider this, Davis is caught between a rock and a hard place and one would have to assume under normal circumstances that would be correct. Davis is relocating his franchise and desperately in need of being able to deliver a winner. Think of how bad brand new Levi Stadium looks when it is only fractionally filled and the only red you saw in the stands were the empty seats.
PSL money is one of the backbones of stadium financing in this modern NFL and people don’t invest in losers. So the question becomes what is $18+M worth now versus the damage of moving a loser into a brand new building and owing $12M or less?
Hell’s Bells
Hells bells are calling for you…Â A famous line in an iconic song used to open every home game for the Oakland Raiders. December 31, 2017, is the last day of the year and symbolically, the Raiders season. This season has been derailed with many different decisions made by the person in charge. Lately, more assistant coaches are coming under fire and getting blamed for the mishaps of the offense.
Spoke to a source about Albert Breer’s report about Mike Tice: https://t.co/kt7n5Ijxf8
— Ted Nguyen (@FB_FilmAnalysis) December 29, 2017
Tice is the guiding force behind the most successful unit on this team for the second year in a row. Singling him out as a malcontent and divisive is hard to fathom, more importantly, given his pedigree perhaps those who were straying from his approach are more of the problem.
This team seems to have a problem keeping the services of coaches who enjoy success. It also has far too much talent to be finishing seasons at (6-10 or 7-9), one thing is for sure as we get closer to the end of the season those who haven’t found their mojo this year will dread Black Monday.
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Del Rio lacks game management skills and situational awareness. Going on 4th down in the DEN game in Denver was a bad call. Seems clueless on how to run a 4 minute offense with the game on the line. Personnel moves during game day are ludicrous ie starting Obi against Brady at corner. Borders sat on the PS while that was happening. Borders lost to another team while we promote a DL and don’t activate him for the game. Tice issues have to be tied to Downing running stretch zone plays with a unit built to pound the rock. 330 lb OLs don’t excel at some blocking and Tice is most likely telling odd owning that on a weekly basis. Del Rio did his job as a transitional coach and got lucky last year. Odd owning needs to earn the “T†and “D†in his name. The dude is way over his head. Getting owned from the initial snap to the end of the game. Bye JDR, bye odd owning, off season recovery for Carr, keep Pagano, this team is back in the race in 18’.