Dickey: Raiders can be repaired if Davis steps back
By Glenn Dickey
Special to The Examiner 10/3/08
Lost cause? Raiders owner Al Davis has created an environment that is tough for players and coaches to thrive in. ASSOCIATED PRESS SAN FRANCISOC – There is a way to fix the Raiders, but it involves Al Davis turning the decision-making over to somebody else.
The first move would be to hire a top-flight general manager who would bear the chief responsibility for the draft and free-agency moves. Longtime Raiders fans long for the return of Ron Wolf, but I don’t think Wolf has any desire to return to the day-to-day operation.
My first choice would be Bill Polian, now the president of the Indianapolis Colts, who has built teams in Buffalo, Carolina and Indianapolis.
If Davis threw enough money at him, he might get Polian to accept the challenge. If not, he could pick his brain to find an up-and-coming personnel guy who was looking to make his reputation.
Then, find a coach. When Bill Cowher stepped down in Pittsburgh, he said he would sit out two years to honor his television commitment. It wouldn’t make sense to bring him in for the rest of this season, anyway, but he’d be available in 2009, if he wants to come back. He’s a proven commodity.
If not Cowher, possibly Denny Green. Often rumored as a possibility, Green likes Davis but doesn’t want to work under the current circumstances. He might change his mind if he were answering to a different man and, with Davis removed from active decision-making, this coaching job would be attractive. Despite all the misery of the past five seasons, there’s a good nucleus of talent on this team. Good coaching and good management could make it a winner.
And then Davis could sit back and accept congratulations for putting the Raiders back in the NFL’s elite.
That’s the dream scenario. Unfortunately, dream is the operative word there. Davis seems determined not only to keep control but systematically weed out anybody who challenges any part of that.
He talked this week about bringing in a football guy to help in the front office next year, but what reputable football guy would come to an organization where he’s not part of the primary decisions?
Same with a coach. Rich Gannon said it best: “I’ve always said it’s not a tough place to work, it’s an impossible place to work. ... This guy, [interim coach] Tom Cable, the poor guy, does he think he is more equipped and better prepared than his predecessors?”
Gannon, of course, was the quarterback for the Raiders’ last Super Bowl team. He knows exactly what it’s like in Raiderland.
And I’m sure Cable has no illusions. His one previous head-coaching job was a low-level college job, at Idaho, and he went just 11-35 in four seasons. He’s Joe Bugel. Like Bugel, he is an excellent offensive line coach but not head-coach material.
But Davis has no real choices. He had none when he picked Lane Kiffin, either. He wanted Steve Sarkisian, but Sarkisian stayed at USC because he got a pay raise — and, quite possibly, because he knew what it was like with the Raiders because he had been on the staff.
So, Davis went for Kiffin, who’d had no previous head-coaching experience. He’ll have to go back to his current staff for the next choice because neither proven coaches or young ones with aspirations will come to the Raiders now.
It would be an easy fix, but Davis won’t make it. Sad.
Glenn Dickey has been covering Bay Area sports since 1963 and also writes on www.GlennDickey.com. E-mail him at glenndickey@hotmail.com.
2 Comments
Reader Comments:
POSTED Oct 3, 2008
Sicnarf: "I can't believe what a pair of losers own teams on each side of the Bay Area. One is senile and the other is stupid. What a pair. Sheesh!"POSTED Oct 4, 2008
Frank Penna: "Glenn, We have both been watching Al for a long time now. He will not change, nor give up power to a third party. Narcisus's don't see reality and the recent past has been a disaster."