Category Archives: Raiders

Greg Knapp is no “Re-tread”

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Written February 1st, 2012

It started Monday evening, like everything else does these days, on Twitter. First I saw CSNBayArea’s Paul Gutierrez’ tweet saying that the Raiders had offered the offensive coordinator job to Greg Knapp. Hmm, I thought, I wonder how that’s going down with Raider Nation?

So I searched “Knapp”, and smoke started to slowly seep out of my phone. One tweet after another, “Greg ‘take a’ Knapp,” “Let’s bring JaMarcus back, too,” “What are they doing?” and, of course, “retread.”

On the radio today, I heard John Lund on 95.7 The Game lay out a pretty detailed analysis of Knapp’s career, including his time with the Raiders, and his conclusion, along with every guest he had on the show from Indy, was that it was a pretty good hire. What did his partner, Mychael Urban, think? “He’s a retread, John. I don’t like retreads.”

So I thought I’d try to help calm everybody down. First of all, what’s a retread in coaching? Someone who, despite a lack of success, continues to be hired to coaching positions, usually head coaching positions. Greg Knapp has been an assistant coach in the NFL for over 20 years. The Raiders years were  easily the least distinguished of his career, but you can hardly say that he hasn’t been successful. He has coached in the playoffs in San Francisco, Atlanta and Houston, the first two as a coordinator.  You could hardly blame Knapp for the Raiders’ problems those two years, and the truth is the team got worse offensively after Tom Cable stripped him of the OC title.

He has that “demotion” on his resume, but Knapp has never been “fired,” in the sense that Greg Manusky was let go by Norv Turner after this season. He’s lost jobs, but only when the head coach he worked for got axed. He was on Steve Mariucci’s staff with the 49ers when Steve was surprisingly fired, and he got canned in Atlanta when Jim Mora wore out his welcome there. Mora spent the next two years as an assistant, and as soon as he got another head coaching job, he re-hired Knapp. The Seahawks changed their minds on Mora after just one year, and Knapp was looking for work again. Gary Kubiak hired him to be the QB coach in Houston, working with Matt Schaub, whom he had coached in Atlanta.

So Schaub gets hurt, and then Matt Leinert gets hurt, and the Texans are down to C.J. Yates. You all know how that turned out, but you might have forgotten that Knapp was the guy who got the credit for “coaching him up” and winning a playoff game.

There’s a theme in Knapp’s career. People who have worked with him before want to work with him again. Do you think that Matt Schaub would have wanted Knapp to be the QB coach if he didn’t respect him from their days in Atlanta?  Think Shaub was worried that Knapp was a retread?

Here’s another way to look at it, Raiders fans. Let’s just say Dennis Allen really wanted Greg Knapp, but the people in the Raiders’ offices really didn’t like him. There are still many people in that organization who were there when Knapp was there. They know better than any of us what went wrong in those lost seasons, and if Knapp was to blame, they wouldn’t want him back. Would Allen want the distraction of shoving Knapp down the organization’s throat, with all he has to do the next couple of years? No way.

All right, I’m going to make one more pass at this to help Raider fans give this guy a chance. Do you like Darren McFadden, Raider Fans? Of course you do. Well, McFadden will love Greg Knapp. His SF teams were 2nd, 5th and 6th in rushing in his three years there, and the Falcons led the league in rushing in all three of his seasons running that show.

Did you see how Texas ran the ball the last few years? Okay, I can see how you don’t want to give Knapp credit for that, it wasn’t his offense. But the architect of the blocking schemes that the Texans use to run the ball is a guy named Alex Gibbs. Who’s that? Just the guy who put the Denver Broncos running game together that finally carried John Elway to the Super Bowl Championship in the 90’s. Remember those Broncos teams, how 1,000-yard rushers would appear out of nowhere every year? Gibbs did that. Kubiak brought him to Houston in 2008 to do the same thing in Houston.

What does this have to do with Greg Knapp? Alex Gibbs was also on the Falcons staff with Knapp and Dennis Allen. I think you can expect that the Raiders will hire an OL coach with experience in Gibbs’ system, and Knapp will coordinate an offense that will make Darren McFadden and his fans very happy.

I think this is the fourth straight outstanding move by the Raiders. The hiring of Reggie McKenzie, the decision to cut ties with Hue Jackson, and the hiring of Allen were all big steps forward for this team, and Knapp is another piece of the puzzle they’re trying to put together.

Raider Fans, you’ve been through a lot these past ten years, but hang in there. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and it might not be a train.

 

Super Bowl XI – Raiders break through

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Published at CSNBayArea.com on February 2nd, 2012

Much was made a few weeks ago about the 30th anniversary of “The Catch,” but this season is also a significant anniversary for the NFL team on the other side of the Bay. Thirty-five years ago, the Oakland Raiders won the first of their three Super Bowls, defeating the Minnesota Vikings 32-14.

For the Raiders, the victory was made sweeter by the fact that they had finally won “The Big One” after years of frustration. Oakland had played for a Super Bowl berth six times in the eight seasons between 1968 and 1975. It lost every one of those games and every single time, the victors went on to win the Super Bowl.

Thus, the 1976 season began with a huge weight on the shoulders of the Raiders, and especially coach John Madden and quarterback Ken Stabler.  As fate would have it, their very first game was against the team that had ended their previous two seasons, the Pittsburgh Steelers.  The Steelers took a 21-7 lead early in the fourth quarter, but the Raiders came storming back with 24 fourth-quarter points and won the game on a late field goal.

The Steelers and Raiders were famous for their dislike for one another, and things didn’t get any better in this game. Raiders safety George Atkinson knocked Steelers receiver Lynn Swann out with a forearm to the back of the head — on a running play. In fact, on the NFL Films highlight you can see Atkinson clock Swann — then a second later Franco Harris barrels past on a 25-yard run!

The comeback win, and the Atkinson-Swann incident, set the tone for the Raiders’ season. They barely survived games against Kansas City and Houston, and took a shaky 3-0 record to New England to face the Patriots. The Raiders were blown out, as Steve Grogan threw two TD passes to Darryl Stingley and ran for two more scores. The final score was 48-17.

As it turned out, that was the only game the Raiders lost in 1976. They had a couple of close calls, the closest being when Bears kicker Bob Thomas hit the upright on what would have been a game-winning field goal. Their biggest blowout of the season was a 49-16 win over the expansion Tampa Buccaneers led by QB Steve Spurrier.

The Raiders were unconventional on both sides of the ball. On offense, they were “left-handed,” with a southpaw QB in Stabler and perennial All-Pros Gene Upshaw and Art Shell at left guard and left tackle, respectively. Tight End Dave Casper often lined up on the left side, which was highly unusual at the time. They controlled the ball on the ground with an incredible line and backs Mark Van Eeghen and Clarence Davis, with Pete Banaszak coming off the bench when it was time to stick it in the end zone.

When defenses cheated up to play the run, they paid a terrible price. Flanker Cliff Branch, one of the most underrated players in NFL history, had his best season in 1976. He averaged a stunning 24.15 yards per catch, and scored 12 TDs. While he was stretching the field vertically, sticky-fingered split-end Fred Biletnikoff and Casper were finding holes underneath. Stabler completed exactly two-thirds of his 291 passes, leading the league by a fairly wide margin.

On the defensive side of the ball, the Raiders had changed to a 3-4 defense, still a pretty novel concept at the time.  The personnel was a combination of All-Pros (Ted Hendricks, Phil Villapiano, Willie Brown) and guys who came out of nowhere (Willie Hall, Monte Johnson, Skip Thomas). The result was a defense that was not easy to run on (10th in the NFL), which was a bigger deal back in 1976 than it is now.
There was little drama involving the AFC West, as the Raiders clinched the title in Week 12. The remaining intrigue in the regular season centered around Game 13, a Monday night matchup at home against the 9-3 Cincinnati Bengals. If Cincinnati won, the Steelers would have been eliminated from the playoffs, and more than one observer felt the Raiders would have been better served to lose to Cincinnati to avoid the red-hot Steel Curtain.

Madden, of course, was not interested in any such scenario, and he later called the 35-20 win over the Bengals one of the proudest of his career.

To start the playoffs, the Raiders had a rematch with the Patriots, the one team that had beaten them. The playoff game looked like a repeat, with New England taking a 21-10 lead into the 4th quarter in Oakland. Stabler dug into his bag of comebacks, however, and the Raiders survived to meet Pittsburgh in the AFC Championship for the third straight time.

Unfortunately for history, the Steeler team that played in Oakland that day was without both starting running backs, Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier, and the Raiders rolled 24-7.

After six failures on the doorstep, the Raiders weren’t going to be fussy about how they finally got to the Super Bowl. Instead, they dealt out some misery of their own, handing the Minnesota Vikings their fourth Super Bowl loss, controlling the game from start to finish. Biletnikoff was named the game’s MVP, although he didn’t score any of the Raiders’ four TDs. He did have four catches for 79 yards, and three times was tackled at the Vikings’ 1-yard line.

It was a glorious day in Pasadena, the last outdoor day game in Super Bowl history, and as the Raiders carried John Madden off the field on their shoulders his grin was so wide that radio announcer Bill King said he looked “like a split watermelon.” It was the grin, finally, of a champion.

Al Davis’ Training Wheels Have Come Off for Hue Jackson

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Written October 24, 2011

The guy facing the most heat today in the Bay Area is Hue Jackson, rookie head coach of the Oakland Raiders. Just last week Jackson seemed in total command of the situation, having dealt firmly and swiftly with a crisis, and he was enjoying playing games with the media regarding his starting QB for Sunday’s game.

That game, of course, was a complete disaster, made worse, in my opinion by Jackson’s decision to throw Carson Palmer to the wolves in the second half with the game already on its way to defcon 5. Worse yet, the post-game press conference revealed that Jackson and Palmer might have been on the same bus, but each was open to the idea of throwing the other under it.

Friday, we learned (courtesy of The Game 95.7 FM) that Jason Campbell learned of Palmer’s acquisition via texts from his friends. Two days after his injury, and one after his surgery, and no contact from the team regarding its decision to essentially end his days as the starting quarterback.

After the events of the last week or so, I started thinking about Al Davis. When Al hired a coach, he almost always hired one without experience. Sometimes they were young men (Madden, Gruden, Kiffen), and sometimes they were not (Shell, Callahan, Shanahan), but they didn’t have head coaching on their resumes. Obviously, Davis was a control freak, and there was a trade-off going on. Davis was going to put training wheels on the bike, and the coaches were willing to put up with that in exchange for the opportunity to be a head coach.

The problem, of course, would come when Davis and his coach would disagree about when it was time to take off the training wheels, which happened every single time.  Sometimes those disagreements ended with a bang (Cable, Kiffin, Shanahan, Gruden) sometimes with a whimper (Callahan, Shell, Shell).

In Jackson’s case, however, the damn things just fell off, leaving him to fend for himself. Like most first time riders, when you first let go they do okay, but the further they go, the wobblier they get, and that’s exactly what we got from Jackson. The day after Davis’ passing the Raiders were still the “Pride and Poise Boys.” The week after his passing, they said and did everything right. It was interesting, though, that Campbell’s injury came just a few minutes before the halftime ceremony honoring Davis, and suddenly that bike was careening down the sidewalk.

The Raiders almost lost that game to Cleveland, due in part to an inexplicable decision by Jackson to pass up a field goal that would have iced the game.  Immediately after the game, the Raiders started examining their options at QB, decided on Palmer, and started negotiating with the Bengals. By Tuesday, the deal was all but done, and the price was steep. Most observers doubted whether Davis would have signed off on that deal, and many of us (myself included) thought that was a good sign for the team.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday came and went, and all we saw was Jackson holding court with the media, playing coy about whom he would start. We found out Sunday after the game that Boller was the starter all the way, and that Palmer, according to comments he made, didn’t make a pass in practice with pads on all week.

Okay, hold on here for a minute. I enjoy the cloak-and-dagger part of football as much as the next guy, and lord knows Al Davis would have loved it, but when you have a QB that doesn’t make a pass with pads on, that guy doesn’t play on Sunday! You can actually make an argument that if he’s that far away from being ready to play, you shouldn’t have given up a 1st and 2nd round pick for him in the first place, but all that aside, there’s no way he plays that week in the game.

The Raider fans were rightfully shocked and dismayed with the outcome of the game, although I feel that the post-game revelations were far more concerning than what happened on the field. Palmer was saying that he didn’t expect to play. Jackson was saying that getting Palmer in the game was part of the plan all along. Let’s examine that for a second. What were we told was the reason why this move was destined for success for the Raiders? Why, it was the close relationship between Jackson and Palmer, wasn’t it? Jackson recruited Palmer to USC, and the two were both survivors of that toxic Bengals situation. That can form a real bond between people!

So tell me again how just a few minutes after the first game of this grand new venture these two men can be telling the media completely opposite accounts of their expectations regarding the plan? To me, that communication breakdown, combined with the failure of the team to be forthright with Campbell, are red flags for me concerning Hue Jackson.

Jackson was exposed last week as a rookie coach who thought he was bigger than the moment, and it turned out he was wrong. He careened down the sidewalk, and the bike overturned in the street. Luckily, no cars were coming, while he got pretty banged up, he gets to ride again.  I think it’s also pretty clear that Amy Trask and Mark Davis need to get a football guy in there as soon as possible to help Jackson. He’s learning how to be a head coach, and to have him also managing these kind of situations is like asking your kid to learn bike-riding and juggling at the same time…without training wheels.

America’s Tebow Obsession

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Published November 18, 2011 at CSNBayArea.com

This is not about football. I thought I’d better start with that, this being a sports website and all. I would have hated for someone to read the whole thing and then feel ripped off because there was nothing about “release points” or “technique.”

This is an attempt to explain why Tim Tebow is the most polarizing figure in sports today, and maybe outside of sports as well.

First of all, I’m going to give Raiders fans a pass on the whole Tebow thing. While most of America is grappling over the issue, for Raiders fans it’s pretty simple. The guy wears a Broncos jersey to work. That’s pretty much game over for them.

The fact that he’s apparently revived a division rival that seemed to be dead on the side of the road, they don’t like that very much either. Throw in the way he ran through, around and over the Raiders a few weeks ago, and you can bet that the mere sight of No. 15 is enough to get their blood boiling.

OK, the Raiders fans are sedated and in the other room watching the Super Bowl XI highlight video. Now we can get down to the topic at hand:

What is it about this guy that makes him so easy for critics to dismiss and deride, yet there are also people who would “Forrest Gump” him at the drop of a hat (meaning run behind him from one end of the country to the other for no reason).

Most people aren’t trying to answer this question, by the way. They’ve picked their side, and now they’re rooting like crazy for him to succeed or fail depending on their choice.

There’s another question, however, that is beginning to work its way through the minds of America’s sports fans, and it’s being discussed around thousands of water coolers today: How in the world does he do it?

How does he win these games? How can he play like Clark Kent for 55 minutes, and then turn into Superman for the last 5 (plus overtime, if necessary)? And especially, why do defensive players and special teams guys seem to play so much better when he’s the quarterback, even though they don’t occupy the field at the same time?

Here’s my theory, and it’s pretty simple, really. He’s a really, really good guy. OK, that’s not a news flash, even his detractors always mention it. Here’s why it’s significant, though, in my view: Goodness is very easy to deride and demean, but only from a distance. When you actually come face-to-face with goodness, it’s much harder to have such a negative viewpoint about it.

That’s why the people who believe in Tim Tebow the most are the ones who actually know him. The ones who have looked in his eyes, either in the locker room, on the practice field, or, the past few weeks, in the huddle and on the sidelines. They see the goodness up close.

There was nothing not to like last night about Tebow. He stood up on the podium after the game, complimented his teammates and coaches, explained in considerable detail what went into the winning play, smiled a lot, and seemed very happy to be Tim Tebow.

In another time, Tebow would be a national hero, not a controversial figure. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we live in a world in which cynicism is often rewarded. Our entertainment is largely watching “real people” on TV doing things that allow us to laugh at them, not with them. Here’s a clean-cut, religious, polite, humble guy who, by the way, wins football games in bunches and always has.  What’s not to like? What part of that package would you not show your child and say, “That’s how it’s done?”

But we’re cynical, remember? So we don’t trust Tebow. There must be something wrong with him, right? Nobody’s that good, not even Joe Paterno, for goodness sakes! We are not going to fall for whatever he’s selling, so we can feel good about ourselves when he has his inevitable fall from grace. That’s part of being human, and it’s why we protect ourselves with all manner of defense mechanisms to keep from getting hurt or disappointed.

Here’s the crux of the matter: Goodness is attractive, but it’s also threatening.  Everywhere this guy goes he draws people to him, and he makes them feel better about themselves. Any success expert will tell you that’s at least half the battle, whether you’re trying to sell copiers or win football games.

If you don’t know him personally, though, it’s very easy to see the goodness as arrogance. We assume he thinks he’s better than us because maybe deep down we think he might actually be better than us. That gives us two choices, rise to his level or bring him down to ours, and it doesn’t take long to figure out the path most of us will take given those options. So we pick away at him, even while he goes about the business of winning football games.

I think what it boils down to is that what we think about Tim Tebow says more about us than it does about him. He gives us the opportunity to feel good about someone who is genuinely good, and as time goes on I believe more and more people will take that opportunity.

There will always be people, though, that can’t give in to that, who won’t allow themselves to let their guard down even for a minute lest they be taken for naïve, gullible, or foolish.

Then there are the people who can’t get past the Broncos jersey. That’s OK, Raiders fans. I don’t think even Tebow would want it any other way.

Al Davis’ Passing Means I’m Free to Root for the Raiders Again!

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Warning: This column will be seen by some as politically incorrect. Anyone sensitive to references to people no longer living that are not 100% gush may want to move to the next link.

I didn’t like Al Davis. There, I said it. Like anyone else who’s been paying attention the past 40 or so years, I understand and respect his impact on the game and the society around the game, but as a human being, the man had flaws like everyone else. Actually, like his talents, even his flaws were bigger than most people’s

First, here’s a little background about me, just for context sake. I grew up in San Francisco, rooting in equal measure for the 49ers, Raiders, Giants, A’s and Warriors. (Sorry, Seals, I tried, but you weren’t on TV enough for me to grasp your game). I felt that all of those teams were “mine,” and felt the joy of victory and pain of defeat as each of them moved through the highs and lows of the 70’s and 80’s. There were some great days, of course, but the worst was “Black Saturday,” the day the Raiders lost on the Immaculate Reception and the 49ers blew a 3-score lead to the Cowboys on the very same afternoon.

Unfortunately, my love for the Raiders was not enough to keep them in Oakland. Al Davis moved the team to Los Angeles. I was angry, and unlike many Raider fans, I never got over it. When he brought the team back, it was even worse, like having someone you used to love deeply move back to town and act like they never tore your heart out.

Over the past several years, I have enjoyed how the team devolved into a dysfunctional mess. To me it was obvious that Davis was way past his “sell by” date as a general manager, and his press conferences each time he hired a new coach proved my point.  The highlight was the “Lane Kiffin Period,” as I like to call it, and if there were ever two people in football who deserved each other more, I don’t know about it. My opinion is that Al Davis was keeping that team from succeeding, just as surely has he had made it succeed 20 years earlier.

This season, however, started off a little differently. I’ve followed Hue Jackson’s career since he was an assistant coach at UOP in the mid-80’s, and while I was glad to see him get the opportunity to be an NFL head coach, I felt that his tenure would be marred by the usual series of strange decisions and events that torpedoed Cable, Kiffin, Callahan, and every other head coach since Tom Flores. The first few games of the season looked very familiar. Underperforming team, blow a big lead in Buffalo, piling up penalties, you know the drill.

Then Al Davis passed away. Let’s look at what’s happened since: Big win on the road in Houston.  Withstood the loss of the starting QB and beat Cleveland. A blockbuster deal, one that Al Davis would not have made, to fill that QB hole.  They’re playing exciting football, and making exciting moves to try to win this season. What’s not to like?

The Raiders also are working behind the scenes in the NFL to try to get the league to tone down the violent image it conveys to TV audiences. They have begged/cajoled/pressured the TV networks to show families at their games having a good time, not just the psychos in the “Black Hole.”   In my opinion, the NFL’s decision to jettison Hank Williams, Jr. from the Monday Night telecast was more about the “rowdy friends” image from which they’re trying to move away than anything he said about the president. I give Amy Trask and the Raiders some credit for that.

The irony is that I’ve spent the last ten years in the belief that Al Davis was holding back the Raiders. If I was right, they need to win now to prove it. That’s not the best reason ever to root for a football team, but it’s good enough for me. I’m on board the Silver and Black bandwagon from this point forward. One thing, though: I’m going to need a bigger seat than I had back in 1981, so scoot over, wouldja?