For the first time in nearly 20 years, Sebastian Janikowski won’t have a place in the Raiders’ locker room next year.
One of the perks to not being part of the locker room is the freedom to more openly reflect on the locker room.
Speaking to Jerry McDonald of the Bay Area News Group, Janikowski talked about what was different this season and why the locker room culture wasn’t as healthy as it was a seaon ago.
“The chemistry was different,” the 39 year-old kicker told McDonald. “I felt like the guys never got on the same page on offense, defense, special teams. There wasn’t the same emotion or feeling. People were just cruising through it. Jack (Del Rio) did a good job. I just feel like some players didn’t take responsibility. You’ve got to commit.”
There are a number of existing theories as to what went wrong this season, but it does seem the Raiders lacked a strong veteran voice in the locker room when the season began to turn sideways.
Making matters worse, players began to lose confidence in the coaching staff over time.
As it turns out, Raiders owner Mark Davis was losing confidence in the coordinators and head coach along the way, as well.
twitter: @raidersbeat
It falls on Del Rio! Incompetent coordinators ! Except for Pagano
lets see since we already know the musgrave/downing debacle
and the rumors are persistent about locker room problem children
lets see if we can make a list and figure out who the problem was?
marshawn lynch
end of list
lynch needs to pack his traveling clown show up and put in his retirement papers
and as far as players taking days off b/c they are butt hurt that their inept buddy the D.C. was fired that has to stop
hopefully the trouble makers know not to try it with Gruden but if they do let’s hope the raiders front office imposes staggering fines upon their players and really drops the hammer on that locker room.
the raiders need professional players with high football IQs and a strong work ethic.
currently they have about 25 of those type of players on the roster. the rest are CFL players, practice squad players, or bad eggs whose negativity they bring to the team outweighs their athletic talents
ie: lynch, penn, crabtree,
this roster needs a complete overhaul from top to bottom
more novarro bowman type signings and less marshawn lynch/aldon smith type signings
my biggest worry is that the raiders GM and/or scouting department is incompetent and the roster/free agent signings will be screwed up some way some how by Reggie and company
gruden isn’t great at analyzing college talent outside of the QB position and even at QB Gruden can be shaky with his judgment
reggie either needs to brush up on his GM duties/talent analysis or step down and hand the reigns over to someone who knows what the hell they are doing
between reggie his brother raleigh and joey clinkscales the nepotism is at an all time high in oakland’s front office and scouting department and the draft success is on par with the al davis’s 2001-2011 run.
any schmuck right off the street would have better success pulling names out of a hat than reggie and his jihad wards, shilique calhouns, menelick watson’s, connor cooks, and mario edwards jr.
either complete busts or drafted several rounds to early.
if reggie blows this draft he must be fired. it’s sudden death for the raiders GM
Amazing, wannabe GM! I almost bet MONEY you were one of the fools SCREAMING about Lynch blowing off Grudens meetings! About Crabtree being cut. About Amari and Carr suck! You know the team SOOO well that you’re making talent evaluations, IQ evaluations, who is and who isn’t NFL qualified! Here’s a novel IDEA for you. Let the coaches, coach. Let them do their jobs. And if they screw up, say something. But please don’t speculate on things YOU KNOW NOTING ABOUT!
Hard for me to disagree with any of your points
Amen brother!
Reggie better draft well for once…he has sucked. The turds we have drafted so high are reeking bad! Time after time except for fall-in-our- lap luck (Carr , Mack , Cooper). DJ Hayden , every DB has sucked. If you don’t play you suck , Conley this means YOU. Obi sucks! Calhoun sucks! Ward sucks! We have no pass rush except for poor Khalil…Draft evaluation is critical , yet we Raider fans are burned again and again by incompetent player evaluation. And they are leaving town. It makes me sick. The coming season could very well be an expensive train wreck…on Mark Davis’ dime