RAIDER NATION Season THREAD:

[HNL HI]

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[h1]Tony Sparano isn't the man for Raiders[/h1]
By Marcus Thompson

Raiders interim coach Tony Sparano, once again, has made lunch from leftovers.

As he did with the Miami Dolphins in 2008, Sparano has salvaged something good out of a mess. And now he presides over the most promising three-win team in the league.
But while Sparano deserves praise, the Raiders need to aim higher when selecting their next coach.The noticeable improvement in the team's play and the euphoria of three wins in a month isn't enough to declare that Sparano is the guy for the challenges ahead. And the Raiders still have plenty of challenges ahead.
Sure, players are lining up to vouch for him. Derek Carr. Charles Woodson. Latavius Murray. Antonio Smith. But their endorsements are only a testament to what Sparano has done with these players.
That's good enough to keep a job with the Raiders. It's even good enough to be a fall-back option. But not good enough to vault Sparano over all others, starting with Jim Harbaugh. The Raiders can't afford to get caught up in the positive vibes Sparano has created and not go for the better options. Doing so would be to ignore the big picture.The Raiders are in such bad shape that winning three of their past eight games is cause for celebration. They are in the midst of courting multiple cities to help them build a stadium and usher them into modernity. The next coach is in for a major undertaking.For a franchise that hasn't posted a winning season since Barack Obama was a senator, the Raiders need more than a good coach. They need a special one. The smart move is to get someone proven.
What if crisis management is Sparano's one trick? What if he only looks good in the wake of the mess he inherited? The Raiders can't be the team to find that out. Too much is at stake to miss on the head coach, yet again.So far, Sparano has proven only that he is the man to call to get you through a rough patch.

Dennis Allen, Hue Jackson, Tom Cable, Lane Kiffin, Art Shell (reprise), Norv Turner, Bill Callahan. The Raiders have had 11 coaches in 18 seasons. They need to get this one right. They have the money for a coach, and for players. They could have more than $65 million if they sever ties with Matt Schaub, LaMarr Woodley and Maurice Jones-Drew.

They had stacks of cash to spend last offseason and came away with a bounty of faded stars. Good free agents don't come to losing teams with no sign of a turnaround on the horizon. Having Sparano as head coach won't change that.

The Raiders really don't have anything to lure free agents. No winning reputation. No legendary figure as owner. No sparkling stadium. No general manager known for building championship teams. No elite players whom other elite players want to play alongside.

This next head coach hire is a chance for the Raiders to change that, to add allure and prestige to the franchise. And first on their list should be Harbaugh.

That's a cruel rerun for Sparano. In 2010, while Sparano was still the coach in Miami, Dolphins owner Stephen Ross openly courted Harbaugh for the job. Now Harbaugh is widely seen as the better choice again.

But the reality is Harbaugh is a perfect fit. He is a proven franchise-flipper who would instantly upgrade the credibility of the Raiders.

Even if they can't get Harbaugh, Sparano should be down the list. The Raiders should be hunting for someone who can transition their quarterback from promising rookie to All-Pro. They need a franchise face who makes the Raiders attractive again.

The fill-in job Sparano has done over the past 11 games is admirable. But the Raiders need more than a coach who excels in getting people to not give up. They need more than Sparano.

 

[Johnny_Cakes]

Seems clear to me that so long as Harbaugh hears us out that Mark will make it a priority to sell the Raiders hard to him. Especially happy to hear that RM isn't guaranteed to be fully part of the discussions. Seems to say that it's Mark's mind that Reggie may have to go to get the right coach and he's willing to embrace that.

 

[laker4lifeman]

He just needs to go all out on Jim if it doesn't work out with him I would sell the team.

 

[HNL HI]

I'm worried that someone with reportedly low football IQ would make the decision on the next headcoach and or GM. I wonder if Madden and Ron Wolf will be involved as advisors again.

 

[raider5]

 
I'm worried that someone with reportedly low football IQ would make the decision on the next headcoach and or GM. I wonder if Madden and Ron Wolf will be involved as advisors again.

These were involved last time and it didn't work out so well...Mark's probably thinking he better just do it himself, and I'm okay with that if it's Harbaugh he's hiring.

 

[HNL HI]

If harbaugh falls through do you still trust him to make the call?

I don't even like him being the only guy to deal with harbaugh honestly.

 

[HNL HI]

 [h1]49ers' Harbaugh on the trading block?[/h1]
By Daniel Brown

SANTA CLARA -- On a winter night in 2002, former Raiders executive Amy Trask returned home just in time to answer a ringing telephone. Al Davis was on the line. ¶ Trask was distracted after rushing through the front door and made out only snippets of the conversation. She heard the Raiders owner mention something about trading Jon Gruden. ¶ "I really don't think we should do this," Trask recalls saying. ¶ "You didn't hear me," Davis replied. "I just told you that I did it."

That stunning blockbuster marked the last time a hot coaching commodity was traded from one NFL team to another. Now it's Jim Harbaugh's turn. And the news could come just as swiftly.

How do you trade a coach? It's more complicated than trading a player, which explains why it has happened only a handful of times in the modern era, albeit involving some of the biggest names in coaching -- Gruden, Bill Belichick, Bill Parcells and **** Vermeil, to name a few.The 49ers are expected to part ways with their headstrong but highly successful coach soon after Sunday's season finale against the Arizona Cardinals. The Raiders, who once traded away a charismatic, ambitious coach, are among the candidates to be on the receiving end this time -- if Harbaugh chooses to stay in the NFL.

It's such tricky process that the 49ers might have to fire Harbaugh if they can't swing a deal -- or if the coach refuses to play along. (He would have to sign off on any deal and might not be in the mood to make things easy on his bosses.)

Harbaugh won like crazy, especially over his first three campaigns when the 49ers went 36-11-1 in the regular season and reached three NFC title games and a Super Bowl.

But along the way, he has clashed with CEO Jed York and general manager Trent Baalke, who apparently have concluded that the Harbaugh-induced headaches now outweigh the wins.

Harbaugh has one season remaining on a five-year deal that pays him $5 million per year. But, strange as it sounds for a coach getting pushed out of town, he's also in position to earn a significant pay raise.

This is where it gets complicated. Unlike most players, head coaches under contract have veto power when it comes to their trade destination. It's essentially a two-step process: 1. The two teams would need to agree on trade compensation. 2. The new team would need to work out a contract with the coach, whose current contract doesn't generally get shipped over.

Both parts of the equation are high stakes. Harbaugh will be operating with substantial contract leverage because the University of Michigan has reportedly offered him a six-year deal in the $48 million range. There is no protocol for compensation between an NFL team and a college team.

Harbaugh, despite falling out of favor amid a 7-8 season, is the hottest name on the market.

Edwards, now an ESPN analyst, was technically the last NFL coach to be traded. In 2006, the New York Jets agreed to let Edwards out of his contract so that he could replace Vermeil with the Kansas City Chiefs."He's been an excellent football coach, and we're losing sight of that because of all the distractions," former coach Herman Edwards said in a phone interview.

The Jets haggled for a bit but settled for a fourth-round draft pick. "I finally got a chance to show I was worth a draft pick," cracked Edwards, who went undrafted as a college senior and then played 10 years in the NFL.

The compensation for Harbaugh is tougher to peg. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reported last offseason that the Cleveland Browns were poised to offer two third-round draft picks for the 49ers coach. But now Harbaugh is a year closer to free agency and coming off a tumultuous season, so the asking price likely has fallen.

Could Harbaugh step down from his 49ers post in order to move on? If he did, he'd be stuck. The NFL's Anti-Tampering Policy states that "an employee under contract to a member club ... who voluntarily resigns or retires prior to the expiration of his contract, is not free to discuss or accept employment with another NFL club without the consent of the prior-employer club."

That's what happened in the cases of Vermeil and Marty Schottenheimer, who essentially "retired" only to be lured back by a coaching offer. In both instances, their old clubs received compensation because the coaches were still under contract.

In Harbaugh's case, it's tough to imagine the 49ers commanding the type of package the Raiders once got for Gruden. The wunderkind coach established himself in Oakland by going 40-28 (including playoffs) and winning back-to-back AFC West Division titles over his final two seasons. Like Harbaugh, he had resurrected a once-proud franchise: When the Raiders went 12-4 in 2000, they captured their first division title since 1990.

The Buccaneers surrendered their 2002 and 2003 first-round draft picks. The Raiders also received two second-round picks and $8 million in the deal. (The identity of those draft picks is murky because the Raiders did more wheeling and dealing, but Phillip Buchanon, Tyler Brayton and Langston Walker were the best of the haul.)

Gruden got a five-year deal from the Bucs that paid him almost $4 million a season, more than tripling his Oakland salary. Gruden promptly became the youngest coach at the time ever to win a Super Bowl, leading the Bucs over the Raiders at age 39 years, 5 months and 9 days.

"We were determined not to let outside pressures derail us from our goal to find the best person to coach the Buccaneers. Our fans deserve nothing less," Bryan Glazer, the team's executive vice president, said at the time of the trade.

Charley Casserly, the former NFL executive for Washington and Houston, once ventured that the value of a top-tier NFL coach was at least two No. 1 picks. In a piece he wrote for NFL.com  in 2013, he put it this way: "Would you rather have a young franchise quarterback like Andrew Luck or Bill Belichick. ... Personally, I would pass on the star quarterback and take the top-tier coach ... With the salary cap inching up by small amounts each year, the value of an excellent coach only increases."

NFL teams, including the Raiders, might be ready to pounce, but the timeline gets tricky. The "Rooney Rule" requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate. If another team hires Harbaugh within a day or two after the season, it would, in the words of Florio, make "a mockery of the Rooney Rule."

Even without the Rooney Rule, league policy prohibits getting a head start. Another facet of the NFL's Anti-Tampering Policy is that until after the final game of the season:

• No head coach may discuss or accept employment for the current or a future season with another club in the League.
• No club may request permission to discuss employment with a head coach for the current or a future season.
• No employer club may grant another club permission to discuss employment with its head coach for the current or a future season.
  As the 49ers stagger toward their final game, no one is bothering to pretend that Harbaugh will be back. Even the normally feisty coach has sounded increasingly resigned in recent weeks. At his news conference Monday, he sounded at peace: "What will happen, will happen," he said.
  
  Edwards, the former Jets and Chiefs coach, is mystified that it's come to such an unhappy ending. But he said York has to do what's in the best interest of the franchise.
  
  "Harbaugh will continue to be a great coach," Edwards said. "But this is something we tell players all the time when we (part ways with them), 'Hey, you're going to be a good player. But you don't fit in this system and in this philosophy right now.' "

 

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View media item 1321524

 

[raider5]

Khalil mic'd up for the Buffalo game.

 

[laker4lifeman]

Impressive stuff what Carr did and others couldn't against the Bills.

 

[The_Isomotion31]

Raiders need a stadium not a palace
By Scott Ostler Published 3:26 pm, Tuesday, December 23, 2014

36





It’s time for Mark Davis and the Raiders to take the team, and football, and sports, and the world, in a new direction: back to the basics.
Levi’s Stadium is a French poodle. The Raiders need a rescue mutt.
Sports-venue building has become a game of rich-guy one-upmanship. I see your Cowboys Stadium, Jerry Jones, and I raise you Levi’s Stadium, with wi-fi in every hot dog. Excuse me, frankfurter.
Result: faux-marble palaces for the 1 percenters.
San Francisco is bidding to host the Olympics. For the main stadium, the plan is to erect a temp stadium for $350 million. Temporary (I assume) does not mean unsafe or rickety; it means basic and unpretty.
The London Olympics featured temp arenas. A couple of years ago, San Francisco put up a temp stadium on a pier for a volleyball tournament. They worked fine.
The Raiders could build a “temp” stadium that could be used for 10 years or more. Bad idea if you’re trying to win architecture awards. Great idea if you’re trying to win football games.
A Levi’s-class stadium would cost $1.5 billion, plus the cost of designer chefs. A temp stadium can be built for less than one-third of that cost.
With the billion dollars saved, the Raiders can keep ticket prices from skyrocketing and give themselves a true Black Hole atmosphere. The basic bowl will be a noise trap. With no VIP dining/drinking hideouts, fans will — a novel idea — sit in their seats!
Here’s a truth that stadium builders always ignore: Football fans don’t give a spit what the stadium looks like. But if you’re worried about an ugly exterior, the erector-set look, do this: Nail plywood to the outside structure and paint it white. Voila! A giant outdoor projection screen for art, photos, movies (no ads). Hey, a new use for the Raiders’ overhead projector!
The Raiders are the perfect team for this bold experiment. Their fans are not martini-sippers or canape-nibblers. They come to football games for football games.
Instead of a work of art, the Raiders would have a stadium that celebrates the art of work.
Scott Ostler is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @scottostler

http://www.sfgate.com/sports/ostler/article/Raiders-need-a-stadium-not-a-palace-5976404.php

 

[mr jordan04]

If harbaugh falls through do you still trust him to make the call?

I don't even like him being the only guy to deal with harbaugh honestly.

 

[ihatemyshoes]

[h1]Vikings VP Warren gets boost to be Raiders team president[/h1]
http://www.twincities.com/vikings/ci_27213217/vikings-vp-warren-gets-boost-be-raiders-team

 

[Johnny_Cakes]

Does that article mean that the guy is actually being considered or he's being suggested?

 

[HNL HI]

Reads like being suggested.

In other news kawakami has his hands full with UM fans on twitter. 

 

[The_Isomotion31]

Reports around the internet make it sound like the Michigan job is a sure thing.


Wonder what Mark Davis' list looks like for candidates.

 

[raider5]

He may be leaning towards UM...but any smart man would listen to offers before making a decision..

 

[HNL HI]

i hope he does go to Michigan cause the way the fanbase is acting i dont know if they can handle the let down.

 

[HNL HI]

Maybe one of our future d lineman in this holiday bowl?

I know Randy Gregory was hurt for the last game maybe he still is, dude is just standing around in there.

 

[kingofne]

Gregory just hasn't looked the same after the injury.

 

[Johnny_Cakes]

i hope he does go to Michigan cause the way the fanbase is acting i dont know if they can handle the let down.

**** their fan base.

 

[swendro]

i hope he does go to Michigan cause the way the fanbase is acting i dont know if they can handle the let down.

**** their fan base.

 

[HNL HI]

these dudes don't know how to act.

 

[tupac jordan]

Damn! That gif just gave me a ceasar.

 

[kayzeezay]

Sucks about Harbaugh