The Raiders fired offensive coordinator Chip Kelly and senior offensive assistant Bob Bicknell at the start of the week, but is the elephant in the room among the coaching staff still in the building?
The Raiders have given up 37 sacks on the season (second most in the league behind the Tennessee Titans) and 20 in the last three games, and offensive line coach Brennan Carroll has been able to find very little success with the depleted offensive line the Raiders have been forced to roll out over the last few weeks.
Carroll, of course, is Pete Carroll’s son and from a productivity standpoint, it’s hard to imagine he would manage to keep his job in many other situations.
The conversation around the younger Carroll has been going on for months, and former Raider great Lincoln Kennedy addressed the situation this week on his podcast.
“He’s the coach’s son. I mean, look, I’m not one who wants to mix business with family. Okay. Trust me… I don’t do that. But at the same point, at this position, something’s got to happen,” Kennedy said on the Locked on Raiders Squad Show podcast.
“I’m not that fire guy. I’ve never been that… because, look, I don’t want to get into coaching because I don’t want to live with my bags packed, but also because of reasons like this. The fact that the players are out there not doing well, sometimes they’re in the wrong position. That does have something to do with coaching. At the same point, it also has to do with execution.”
“There were three starters on this offensive line that probably wouldn’t start for another team in the league if it wasn’t due to injuries. You’re dealing with that and look, it has not proved beneficial in any way. They can’t run block, they can’t pass block. It’s a pain to watch this offensive line,” Kennedy continued.
“Like I said, many things are going to happen. I’m not that fire guy. I’m not going to say anybody deserves to lose their job, but there’s something to be said when your son works in the same office as you. I don’t know how hard that makes it to make that hard decision. This offensive line has poor communication, poor execution, and they cannot play well together.”
As Kennedy pointed out, the Raiders don’t have a lot of healthy players along their offensive line, but is that an excuse to be run over the way they have in the last few weeks?
Just a guess… but Brennan Carroll probably isn’t going anywhere until the end of the season.
It has become clear in recent weeks that there is enough going on behind the scenes with the Raiders that the elder Carroll probably isn’t about to fire his own son.
Not a lot is known about the interworking of the Raiders as an organization right now, but former CEO of the team Amy Trask made an interesting comment last week about the ownership group that joined the team a year ago.
Trask didn’t mention Mark Davis or Tom Brady as concerning influences in the organization.
But she did mention Jim Grey.
“There are, of course, on field problems, but there are also a lot of problems off the field behind the scenes,” Trask said on CBS Sports HQ.
“Many people assume when I say ‘behind the scenes’ that I’m referring to Tom Brady, but I’m not. The individual who orchestrated Tom’s purchase in the Raiders of the limited partnership interest in the Raiders, Jim Gray, has been working to orchestrate the purchase of an interest in the Raiders since Al [Davis] was alive and we were in the process of selling a minority interest in the team,” Trask continued.
“Well, he finally orchestrated the purchase and now he is involved in every aspect, or almost every aspect, of the organization. This is having an impact on the organization, not only off the field, but on the field. Pete Carroll is a very good head coach, but the problems we’re seeing on the field are related to the problems that are rampant throughout the organization. They’ve got to fix the off-field behind the scenes issues in order to give Pete a chance to be his best.”
x: @raidersbeat
There’s only one reason that he’s coaching in the NFL. And it’s a blackeye on the organization and Pete himself to keep his no load kid on the staff. Should’ve been fired with Kelly.
We can only make assumptions regarding the teams player personnel. Like who, the position coach, HC, or GM made the decision to roll with this OL group. I say that they totally disregarded the inept play of this basically same group from last season. That doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence for future player evaluations. Even this draft class looks underwhelming.
It seems from the comments of the former CEO that the only fix is for Mark Davis to sell the team. I have never considered Mark to be a football guru.