Kliff Kingsbury is one of the hottest coordinators in the NFL right now, and it seems like a long time ago, but he was almost a part of Antonio Pierce’s coaching staff with the Raiders.
In February, it was reported that Kingsbury was expected to be the Raiders next offensive coordinator, but two days later he removed his name from consideration for the job.
The Raiders ended up hiring Luke Getsy to be their offensive coordinator and it turned out to be one of their worst decisions of the offseason. Getsy may not have been the problem in Las Vegas, but it was clear after the first nine weeks of the regular season that he wasn’t part of the solution.
So why did the deal with Kingsbury fall off the rails when it looked so much like a done deal?
Most insiders seem to believe it was the team that stalled the situation.
“The Raiders miss on Kliff Kingsbury was purely contractual,” Sports Illustrated insider Albert Breer reported this week.
“They’d settled on making him their offensive coordinator. But when they sat down to hammer out a deal, Vegas declined to go to a guaranteed third year on it, and Kingsbury’s camp balked. The Washington Commanders caught wind of it. Coach Dan Quinn wanted someone who’d think outside the box (Chip Kelly was high on his list, too), and bring something adaptable for players coming out of college, and Kingsbury’s offense had been a challenge for his defense, too. So Washington moved fast, gave Kingsbury the third year, and Kingsbury, seeing not only that he’d have the extra year, but also the second pick in a quarterback-rich draft, jumped.”
There are some theories that it was something else that spooked the Raiders and Kingsbury back in February, but if Pierce and company really did lose their top choice at offensive coordinator over a third year on his contract, it was a colossal failure by whoever made that determination.
There’s no guarantee that Kingsbury would have been a success in Las Vegas, but there is a 100 percent chance that Getsy was not.
x: @raidersbeat
This franchise will never win a super bowl again till Mark Davis sells the team. His incompetence infected the entire organization and he is disturbing to look at.
Thank you for this article. I am glad someone in the media finally said this out loud. I suspect it was a failure at the highest level of the organization.
Whiffed on Klingsberry, whiffed on resigning Josh “J” and whiffed on JustinFields for a give away 4th or 5th pick….who is the common denominator? Telesco! All 3 are the GM’s job are they not? And on top of all that he signs Getsy. You would think you would fork over the 3rd year for Klingsberry if your alternative is Getsy.
I don’t believe it. When he was contacted by Washington and he was informed he’d be working with Jaden Daniels, that’s where his other option was more appealing.
Just more disfunction out of the front office of my favorite team it’s sickening and disgusting but I’m used to it I just hope for the future this team has been in a steep and steady decline since the “tuck rule” & then getting blown out by T-BAY in 03′ we need a true football mind @ the helm
This was a purely a front office decision. Tom Telesco and Mark Davis set this team up to fail. However, AP has did plenty to screw up this throw away year. You get one chance to be a HC and AP gets saddled with Getsy,Gardner, and Telesco. McDaniels obviously was a terrible HC and talent evaluator (even a worse judge of talent than Gruden) as is evidence on what has got to be the weakest Raider roster since 2013. But as bad as McDaniels was for cutting Carr for nothing Telesco was even worse for bringing in a “gardner” to be QB1. Just flat out terrible, but he got us a good TE. Yeah. Let’s hurry up and JETS ( just end the season) this year so we get a top QB in the draft without giving up future years picks to move a spot or two. Bring on Ben Johnson or at least an actual high end OC as the HC (sorry but Gruden nor McDaniels ever qualified as that no matter what Mark Davis thought). Fix the running game by powering over others instead of trying to run into them. Madd Maxx needs help, so if another starter goes down the season doesn’t end. Wilkins has been a bust so far. He isn’t Chris Jones but is being paid like him. He needs to be a EFF up the play kinda player. Need a CB 1. Jack isn’t that. It looks like about 20-25 people are on the roster now that probably won’t be. That’s a lot of change, but we need multiple starters and lots of depth.