Teams Las Vegas Raiders - The Black Hole

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Sep 6, 2005
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Raiders owner Mark Davis calls decision to fire G.M. Reggie McKenzie “tough”
Posted by Curtis Crabtree on December 12, 2018, 3:00 AM EST
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Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis said the decision to fire General Manager Reggie McKenzie on Monday was a “tough” one for him to make.

According to Scott Bair of NBC Bay Area, Davis thanked McKenzie for his efforts toward the franchise during his seven years as the head of the team’s personnel department. Davis also noted the difficulty of making the call to move on from McKenzie.

Reggie is a great person with a great family,” Davis said. “It was tough [to make the decision]. It was tough for him early on, but he was unselfish. He could’ve done some things for instant gratification, but he didn’t do that. He worked hard for our organization, and we are thankful for everything he did for the Raiders.”

McKenzie endured a difficult first three seasons in Oakland as the Raiders won just 11 of 48 games over that span as the team attempted a total rebuild. The effort peaked in 2016 with a 12-4 record and a postseason appearance for the first time in 14 years. However, a broken leg sustained by Derek Carr in the final weeks of the season scuttled any hope of a deep playoff run.

The team scuffled to a 6-10 mark in 2017 with Jon Gruden’s return to the Bay Area relegating McKenzie’s presence in the organization to a footnote. The reality is that with Gruden signed to a 10-year contract, McKenzie’s influence was trampled upon. The person with the lengthier, higher cost commitment was always going to win out.

Gruden won. McKenzie lost. Now it’s Gruden that will have to re-imagine the future of the Raiders franchise once again as they push toward a Las Vegas relocation in 2020.
 
Sep 6, 2005
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Mark Davis essentially admits that Jon Gruden runs the show in Oakland
Posted by Mike Florio on December 12, 2018, 6:43 PM EST

From the moment the Raiders gave coach Jon Gruden a 10-year, $100 million contract (reportedly, maybe not actually), it became clear that Gruden is running the show. Gruden still tries from time to time to create the impression that he isn’t fully and firmly in charge of the football operation, possibly in order to preserve the ability to blame others for misjudgments that otherwise trace to him.

Regardless, any lingering cover Gruden may have had (none) is now gone, thanks to comments from owner Mark Davis about the looming search for a new G.M.

“One of the issues we have right now is when you’re dealing with player personnel and the General Managers, they’re on a different schedule than the football team is,” Davis said. “The General Manager sees an end basically in April or May after they’ve drafted the players and after they’ve gotten through the first series of free agency. So right now, there’s a lot of people that are on other teams that may be suitable for the Raiders, but we can’t talk to them, and we won’t be able to talk to them until May or so. So right now we’re limited to talking to people who are not on other teams or in the college ranks or something of that nature. That’s the interesting part of this.”

But the Raiders aren’t limited by any timeline; teams routinely hire General Managers in January. The Raiders are limited by the power that the G.M. would have.

That’s the real impediment to hiring a G.M. in January. Any executive under contract with another team can be blocked from interviewing with the Raiders unless the job entails power that otherwise is held by Gruden. Davis, then, is saying that they may wait until after the draft, when contracts potentially expire and/or potentially viable candidates for the Oakland job get hired.

Davis also is saying, without saying it, that Gruden has all the power that a traditional G.M. would possess.

It means that the Raiders may not have a G.M. through the 2019 draft, one in which the Raiders possess three first-round picks. Then again, they have Gruden. Which means that, as a practical matter, they already have their G.M.
 

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Sep 6, 2005
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Speaking with The Athletic's Calvin Watkins, Amari Cooper said it was Raiders owner Mark Davis who wanted to trade him, not coach Jon Gruden.

This is a hard one to decipher. It's possible Davis was just falling on Gruden's sword so as not to make the coach the bad guy. It will also fuel the somewhat persistent rumors that the Raiders are having "cash flow" issues, which remains nearly impossible to believe for an NFL franchise. Although Cooper has blown up for the Cowboys, trading him was not an indefensible decision. With GM Reggie McKenzie recently forced out, Gruden and Davis are an uninspiring duo to have trying to turn around a team.


Source: Calvin Watkins on Twitter
 
Sep 6, 2005
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Raiders owner Mark Davis said Wednesday Amari Cooper was a “great, great player” who didn’t fit Jon Gruden’s offense. Cooper scoffed at that a day later.

In his six games in Dallas, Cooper has more receiving yards (642), first downs (23), first downs on third down (11) and receptions on third down (13) than any other receiver in the NFL has the past six games. Cooper also has six receiving touchdowns, which ties for the most of any receiver the past six games
 
Feb 1, 2008
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Oakland Raiders wide receiver Martavis Bryant was suspended indefinitely by the NFL on Friday for violating the terms of his conditional reinstatement from a previous ban, the league announced in a statement.

"Effective immediately, Martavis Bryant has been returned to the Reserve/Commissioner Suspended list indefinitely for violating the terms of his April 2017 conditional reinstatement under the Policy and Program for Substances of Abuse," the league announced.
 
Feb 1, 2008
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In Ken Norton Jr.'s first year as Seahawks defensive coordinator, Seattle ranks among the top 10 in scoring defense (sixth), takeaways (tied for eighth), third-down percentage (fifth) and red-zone D (ninth). This is quite impressive, considering the unit lost Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor, Michael Bennett, Cliff Avril and Sheldon Richardson during the offseason, while Earl Thomas went on injured reserve in early October. Those six players have 19 combined Pro Bowl appearances to their names.
 
Oct 18, 2013
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In Ken Norton Jr.'s first year as Seahawks defensive coordinator, Seattle ranks among the top 10 in scoring defense (sixth), takeaways (tied for eighth), third-down percentage (fifth) and red-zone D (ninth). This is quite impressive, considering the unit lost Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor, Michael Bennett, Cliff Avril and Sheldon Richardson during the offseason, while Earl Thomas went on injured reserve in early October. Those six players have 19 combined Pro Bowl appearances to their names.

Its not all bad, Gruden got the Seahawks back when hired their OL turnstile coach Tom Cable.

#traderape
 

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Nov 9, 2012
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Looks like KO is out again and Jackson doubtful.

Chaz Greene is expected to play left guard for Osemele. Denzelle Good will replace Jackson at right guard if he’s unavailable.

No run game last week could be worse tonight.

Denzelle Goode is in Oakland now?

I didn't even know he'd left Indy.
 
Sep 6, 2005
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Mark Davis predictably has no regrets about trading Khalil Mack, Amari Cooper
Posted by Mike Florio on December 16, 2018, 8:11 AM EST

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Raiders owner Mark Davis has seen a playoff contender disintegrate this year, thanks to the decisions to trade Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper. And, of course, Davis claims to have no regrets about the trades. Because what else is he going to say?

He said a few things at last week’s quarterly meetings to NFL Media, and the things he said continue to create a perception that, when it comes to giving up on the pass-rusher and pass-catcher, there’s still plenty of passing the buck.

It was all Reggie doing those deals,” Davis said. “He seemed really happy about it.”

Yes, blame it on Reggie McKenzie, the guy who’s now no longer there. The guy who, from the moment Jon Gruden returned to coach the team, lost any and all juice that the former G.M. had.

They won’t be able to blame McKenzie (although they may try, since he surely did plenty of advance work on the next draft) for what comes next: Turning the three first-round picks the Raiders have in April into great players. It’s the first time the Raiders have had extra first-round picks since the trade that sent Gruden to the Buccaneers.

“And what did we do with that?” Davis said regarding the return on the Gruden deal. “You gotta get it right.”

But here’s the thing Davis still doesn’t seem to realize. If you get it right, you gotta pay the players. Davis previously admitted that Mack was traded because of the inability to sign him to a new contract, and that Cooper was traded at least in part because he and Mack have the same agent, and Davis didn’t want a repeat of the Mack mess in 2019, when Cooper potentially held out in order to get a new deal.

Those admissions amount to an invitation to play hardball with the Raiders, and if those three draft picks indeed become special players, the Raiders in three or four years will be right back in the middle of a financial conundrum. And then Davis can say he has no regrets about the decisions to trade them away, too.
 
Sep 6, 2005
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dude, blown out of proportion don't believe the BS blah blah....

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Not at all. Plus Mark is quoted saying it. It shows a real problem going on. Inside Raiders HQ. Where they palm blame off, where their reasonings for doing things are badly flawed (eg, couldnt sign mack, cooper has same agent, lets get rid of him too, but oh what are we gonna do come draft when the bosa's etc are under the same agents, d'oh, and word gets round, agents wont deal with Mark/Raiders in good faith anymore)....etc....trading mack to bears cos they thought theyd suck and get better picks, same with cooper to cowboys etc. They make blunders after blunders and then lie and hide behind scapegoats.

Good franchises make good decisions in hindsight. Bad franchises make bad decisions in hindsight.
 
Sep 6, 2005
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The Raider hate diatribe never ends by the media it has always been prevalent and when things go South the media loves to pounce on us. I guess none of you get that. The media just loves to dump on the RAIDERS that will never change
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because we do stupid s**t constantly. from the geriatric al years when there was some real bad issues going on it really amped up....and notice how it quieted down when reggie was hired and it seemed we were back as a professionally run org? but soon mark's idiocy emerged, and we've been caught doing stupid s**t a lot recently under mark and under gruden....hence, the renewed media attention nitpicking the dumb s**t raiders do.
 
Sep 6, 2005
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come on we were pathetic playing the 9ers we quit right? How have we looked since? My imagination Carr looks like a top tier QB...Conley a stud CB a cohwcohe team ..what am I missing?
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you mean how good we looked going from 3 to 7 to 12 wins?
before you were saying that era was NOT heading in the right direction. but now you want to suggest the gruden era is based on 4 games?
bit devious there
 
Sep 6, 2005
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We are going nowhere with this, I want to focus on some very positive things and not concentrate on ex Raiders...pointless
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you may not want to, because you dont like dealing with adversity and hardship. but that doesnt mean there isn't adversity and hardship and things are rosy just because you want to focus on positive things. there is a thing called burying ones head in the sand.
 
Sep 6, 2005
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I see many positives fck the Bears and fck the Cowboys
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the only entity getting fcked is the raiders.

pumping your chest out and saying "fck this and that team" doesn't fix the problem inside raiders hq, doesnt stop the reality it's the raiders getting fcked by other teams.

so many examples just under gruden....cards trade, bryant trade, switzer, autry/etc all playing well elsewhere, cowboys and bears laughing all the way to the bank, etc. meanwhile here are the raiders wallowing bottom of the league and everyone is yaying cos we have picks.

it's about winning, this franchise is about saving money for a stadium.
 

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