By now, you’ve probably read about the person who was holding back Patrick Graham in the first 22 months of his tenure with the Raiders.
Similarly, you’ve probably read a lot of underwhelming reviews about the Raiders’ soon-to-be-hired offensive coordinator, Luke Getsy.
As it turns out, Graham and Getsy might have relatively similar stories in the sense that they were both running systems and calling plays that pleased their superiors – but weren’t necessarily doing what they felt was best for their respective teams.
To be fair, Graham has never made excuses for his time under Josh McDaniels, but there is reason to believe that McDaniels’ influence didn’t always benefit Graham or the defense.
From Getsy’s standpoint in Chicago, it sounds like he was asked to implement a system that didn’t fit Justin Fields, and that came under the direction of head coach Matt Eberflus.
Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter talked about that dynamic on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast this week…
“How many remember the stories… about how frustrated Justin Fields was with his coaches because they were trying to put a square peg in a round hole? It didn’t work. The problem was that Getsy was doing what his bosses told him to do. So Fields was frustrated, which quite frankly, I think he should have been. But Getsy did was Getsy was told to do.”
For those who haven’t blocked it out of their memory, the Raiders suffered an embarrassing loss to Getsy and the Bears this season, and Fields wasn’t even in the lineup for the game.
It was undrafted rookie Tyson Bagent (who didn’t even play Division I football in college) who dismantled the Raiders on October 22, and Carpenter shared a conversation he had with a Bears’ coach following the game…
“I was in Chicago for the game where the Raiders lost to them and you can go back and hear my postgame podcast and hear me talking about the young kid and some things that he did. I’m walking out and one of the Bears coaches, who I am friends with, said to me ‘That was at Getsy today. The fact that we found a way to get enough points to win. That was a miracle.'”
Time will tell whether or not Getsy was a good hire, but there is some reason for optimism.
Antonio Pierce will allow Getsy the freedom to run his own offense in Las Vegas, and if that wasn’t something that was happening in Chicago, maybe the best is yet to come for Getsy in his fresh start with Raiders.
twitter: @raidersbeat
Good deal!!!! I’m looking forward to seeing this work! Just need a QB because AOC is a backup right now.
Thanks Hondo, we the nation have been pretty blown away with this hire. Was extremely hard to understand what the heck could have been going thru their minds, it certainly wasn’t his success the last 2 years. Let’s give him his chance to prove what he can do with the leash disconnected. There has to be a very good reason why he was selected, this is a make or break hire for the franchise with all the miss hires we’ve had for so make years. Who knows he might end up being the best of the bunch! Kingsbury was let go too for a reason and he had Murray at QB and D. Hop in his prime and plenty of other studs on that team. Fingers crossed!