This season wasn’t what Mark Davis had in mind when he went the unconventional route and gave head coach Jack Del Rio a contract extension with two years still remaining on his initial deal with the Raiders.
With the season now essentially down the drain, Davis is probably tied to a head coach that no team would be clamoring to attract if Del Rio were suddenly available.
After a remarkable 2016 season, there’s a strong case to be made that Del Rio deserves another year to make amends, but this is the NFL and patience isn’t always a virtue in the industry. Furthermore, the Raiders can’t afford to roll into the desert in a few years with an AFC bottom feeder.
Considering the buyout that it would take to replace Del Rio, it’s hard to imagine Davis bailing on his hand-picked head coach, but here are the concerns if Del Rio is back for a fourth season.
First and foremost, the team looks lost. It’s one thing to come in and clean up a culture left by another coach. It’s much more difficult to clean up your own culture.
The coordinators have absorbed much of the criticism this year, but there’s real concerns that some of the issues that manifest during Del Rio’s time in Jacksonville are now cropping up in Oakland.
Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio famously didn’t seem to have a lot to do with the Jaguars offense. He’d be the first person to say so.
Former running back Fred Taylor would be the second person.
“At the end of the day, [Del Rio] is not a head coach,” former Jaguars running back Fred Taylor said back in 2011. “He’s a great defensive coach. But he’s not a head coach.”
Taylor said he didn’t appreciate the inconsistency Del Rio brought to the position – saying it was unlike what he experienced with Tom Coughlin and Bill Belichick.
“With Jack, you never knew what you were getting. You don’t know if you’ll get a hard-*** one day, a buddy-buddy one day. You never really knew.”
Interestingly, Taylor also noted that that he could call the offensive plays from his living room when Del Rio was with the Jaguars.
Sound familiar?
And there’s more where that came from. Here are some of the other accusations that mounted against Del Rio in Jacksonville…
1 – Many believed he had a habit of throwing his assistants under the bus. These assistant coaches even had their own club.
the Jacksonville 19 is a club of the 19 assistants fired by Jack Del Rio.
— Vito Stellino (@vitostellino) February 16, 2010
2 – He was considered “arrogant and inflexible” and married to an outdated offense.
3 – Some players and coaches felt that once he got paid, he didn’t put in the same dedication.
4 – Relationships with players and coaches often soured over time.
Are these patterns something that are beginning to surface in Oakland?
Well, he fired Bill Musgrave – whom he also fired once in Jacksonville – and the offense has only occasionally looked like a competent offense since.
As for relationships with the players, there’s much more to this dynamic than what has entered the public forum. Consistency among his players is something you’re going to hear more about in the weeks and months ahead.
Outdated offense? No explanation needed here.
Which leads to another theory that doesn’t sound all that ridiculous anymore. Did Del Rio fire Downing so that he could have more input into the offense?
Hmmm…
twitter: @raidersbeat
JDR did not fire Musgrave. Get the facts straight. Musgrave was allowed to walk because his contract was up, and he was a very predictable OC. Although, he is not as bad as what we now have. We needed to move on to someone that could take the offense to the next level. Musgrave was not that person.
I agree #raidernation #RNFL
Dude stop…. predictable???…. tell me offensive rank under predictable Musgrave… Exactly!!!…. del rio gotta go bro …. take norton and downing with him….
Del Rio is gone already , he fired Norron 10 weeks ago and Downing will be gone as soon as the new coach arrives …
At times i had issue with Musgrave. But at the end of the day, he was the OC over a 6th ranked Offense. How do you not re-sign a guy like that?
And to the poster who believes there is a difference from being fired and not being renewed, you need to get out more. LOL
I agree as well. I love JDR. I was so excited to hire him and so blessed he helped change the culture which is what the Raiders have needed for over a decade. But it simply came down to this: the players did not respond to him in 2017. Our team looked uninterested and had no fire or desire. I put that on Jack. Obviously His biggest mistake was firing Musgrave simply because “if it’s ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I too thought Musgrave was predictable at times and that bothered me. But I never thought we would keep our DC and let go out OC. That was a mistake but that’s not what got JDR fired. It’s the laxidasical performances this team put out week in and week out. WTF happened to our team? Gruden is not perfect, but he knows how to do one thing that’s important. He gets his players up and ready to battle.
capt jack was awesome for us last year and was unpredictable, but its not musgrave’s fault carr got hurt, he should have overruled passing plays when we were up by over double digits or pulled carr. instead musgrave was the scapegoat and we promoted the bum that is todd downing.. worst move ever made, also we brought del rio to fix the D, and he waited the whole season to promote pagano.. getting gruden back as a true raider fan is the best news we have gotten in years, i never wanted to let him go, and jack was too nice with the players and carr while awesome needs to man up and have someone who can help him reach his max potential.. carr has a great arm and very good athleticism which none of our coaches thus far have taken advantage of. very happy and def think mark davis has been solid in taking over the team and bringing us back.