The Raiders essentially fumbled away – both literally and figuratively – the 2017 season and while the offense has been largely to blame, it’s the defense that could ultimately cost head coach Jack Del Rio his job.
According to The Athletic’s Tim Kawakami, one of the most concerning aspects of Del Rio’s job performance this season has been his inability to improve the Raider defense.
Via The Athletic:
“The Raiders’ prolonged defensive stumble under Del Rio, a former defensive coordinator, was one of the most problematic issues in the relationship between Del Rio and the personnel side, I’ve heard. That’s because McKenzie’s staff believed the defensive players the Raiders have acquired were being wasted. Now, with Pagano running the defense, you can see some of the younger players starting to figure things out.”
Now that it only took Pagano a matter of weeks to field a competitive defense, why did it take so long for Del Rio to identify the problem in the first place?
Why was offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave (with his sixth-ranked offense) replaced and defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. given another year?
It’s fair to wonder why Del Rio continues to be one of the worst head coaches in the league at managing his coordinators and understanding how to identify and correct problems.
So while the team may be worried about Del Rio’s impact – or lack thereof – on the defense, McKenzie and company should probably focus more on what lit the Raiders dumpster fire in the first place – and that wasn’t the defense.
twitter: @raidersbeat
Is there anyone who thinks JDR should return. He’s not a offensive mind; he is suppose to be defensive mind but he has no clue on that side of the ball either. People always talk about how bad he is with coordinators but it’s because I his ego is so big he won’t take blame for anything. Thus the coordinators for years with him have been revolving door. Saying all of this I still don’t think Mark Davis will fire him and eat 3more years on his contract. Take a look at the Rams. They went from Fisher and probable the worse coached team in the league to maybe the overall best after hiring McVay and Phillips as DC with Fossil as special teams coach. Raiders need a change like that.
Yeah Mark Davis’ pocket book thinks he should return that’s it…
Dam Reggie ! Took you this long to see that JDR is way over his head,!?
Mark Davis hired Jdr
Like any business , once established, you continue to improve your product, in this your team, not sat on your butt , and live off past sucess, look at the Patriots , whatever it takes to win, all other teams should take not a page but the whole book from his success.
Fire Del Rio and offensive coordinator, try to hire Gruden.
I wish we didn’t keep Carr, he is just as much of a problem as JDR. Carr has no place being paid what he is paid, and he really showed it this year. The guy just can’t handle being a leader, and his pay means we are going to have to cut other players that deserve it. With the decisions last year to extend Carr and JDR, we basically screwed the franchise for another 5 years.
Never bought into the Carr bandwagon, he hasn’t won or played a single playoff game! RM please no more reaching in the early rounds ! Please fire JDR, downing,the water boy & the landscaping crew ! Get rid of all the bad apples ! Get Mark to a real barber asap!
Tired of hearing DC stating “I’m the one to blame”, we know that , along with Downing and who ever else is involved with the offensive scheme. The question is , why didn’t JDR do some thing about it ? It’s as if he’s clueless.
All you dumb ***’s blaming Derek Carr for the problems in Oakland are just as dumb as Del Rio. Derek Carr deserves every bit of his contract, Carr is not the one to blame, yea he’s the quarterback and of course the qb always gets all the blame. Carr is not healthy and downing is clearly a huge mistake at offensive coordinator, we have a good rushing attack with lynch and we never use play action that alone shows how sorry downing is. A lot of you so called raider fans don’t know **** when it comes to your own team. Carr is not the problem, it’s the coaching. I know Carr is a good qb cause I know what a good qb looks like I don’t need idiots on tv to tell me what a franchise qb looks like. As raiders fans you should feel lucky as hell to have Carr as our leader. Look at the rams everyone was saying Goff was a bust a long with gurley, look at this year made a lot of people look like idiots.
The rams pretty much just got a coach who actually knows how to run an offense and changed everything. The raiders need to fire Del Rio and go after chefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy we do that i guarantee all you People hating on Carr will be looking like fools and jump back on Carrs bandwagon like the 2 face fans you are! JUSTWINBABY!
X-raiderd1, I couldn’t agree more. Living in Fresno. i know and have seen what DC can do, has done, and I believe that it will come full circle with the Raiders, Good things take time…Raider time is-a coming. Any fans that have jumped ship….have done so because you never really part of RAIDER NATION! Always RN4L!!!