"There's a new sheriff in town… and his name is Reggie Hammond."
Ok, in this case it’s Reggie McKenzie.
But in less than 48 Hours, the Raiders new General Manager.
The Raiders FIRST General Manager.
Has this team closer to a Super Bowl than we have been since Clinton was President.
I realize that just using the words RAIDERS and SUPER BOWL in the same blog can get me arrested.
But as a diehard Raiders fan, I haven’t been this excited about the Silver and Black in many years.
Now let me take a giant step backwards.
Which is where this organization has been headed for the last decade.
Al Davis was a GREAT leader.
GREAT.
WAS.
Past tense.
I’m not suggesting that the game passed him by.
I don’t believe that for a minute.
What I do believe is that having 82-year dictator single-handedly running anything is a bad thing.
Are you listening North Korea?
Are you listening Penn State?
Al Davis cared more about the Raiders than any human being.
There is no disputing that.
But that doesn’t mean he always made the right decisions.
When Mr. Davis hired Hue Jackson as the Head Coach last year, I guarantee he felt he was making the right decision.
Just like he did when he hired Tom Cable.
And Lane Kiffin.
And Art Shell... again.
And Norval Turner.
(I love it that he called him Norval.)
And Bill Callahan.
Six coaches in 10 years.
A barista at Starbucks has better job security than that.
But one-by-one, the honeymoon ended.
And so did their job.
Unfortunately Mr. Davis is no longer with us.
And now little Mr. Davis, his son Mark, is running the team.
This week Mini Davis made his first real decision as the new man in town.
And it was a great decision.
He hired a General Manager.
To run the team.
He hired a football man to make football decisions.
What a concept.
He hired Reggie McKenzie.
A former Raiders player, who has been working in the Green Bay Packers front office for 18 years.
The Green Bay Packers.
You may have heard of them.
Before the ink was dry on Reggie’s contract.
Rumors started swirling that the new sheriff wasn’t such a big fan of coach Hue Jackson.
Join the club.
Today it became official.
Hue Jackson fired.
After one year.
One mediocre, underachieving, frustrating, awful year.
Now I must say, as someone who has been “fired” twice.
In the last few years.
That’s not a word I celebrate.
I didn’t understand the word divorce.
Until I got married.
I didn’t understand the word death.
Until my father died.
And I definitely had no concept of the word fired.
Until it happened it to me.
Losing a job is never a good thing.
But when it comes to public figures, and all the money they usually make.
Somehow it seems easier to say.
The good news here is that Hue Jackson will get another job.
Probably soon.
Probably with a team that will face the Raiders.
Hue's sudden dismissal has nothing to do with the fact that he likes the weekly manicure and pedicure.
I'm good with that.
The bottom line is he was the wrong guy.
At the wrong time.
To take this team to another level.
Sure, that’s easy to say now.
After choking away the division.
After losing a must-win game at home to a San Diego team that had nothing to play for.
After blowing a 13-point lead to a Detroit team, at home, with under five minutes left.
After not showing up in Miami for a game with the hapless Dolphins.
After losing back-to-back games at home to the pathetic Chiefs and the Tebow-thetic Broncos.
But the truth here is that I knew Hue Jackson was the wrong man for the job all the way back in Week 3.
When we won.
I remember the camera cutting to a shot of Jackson late in the game.
On the sideline.
As the Jets were driving for a score.
Jackson was waving his arms in the air like he was auditioning for Will Ferrell’s cheerleading character on SNL.
Ok, the first time I saw the shot, I did think...
“How cool. The coach is pumping up the crowd.”
But moments later, when he was doing it again.
And again.
I was like...
“Dude, you are the coach. Not a Raiderette.”
“COACH SOMETHING.”
By some unlikely Raider luck, we actually won that game.
But over the next four months we all got a taste of Jackson’s overinflated character.
And overflowing ego.
Overshadowing any good that he had done.
He came in saying that he wanted to build a bully.
Good role model.
Well his team responded.
By becoming the most penalized team in NFL history.
HIS-TOR-Y.
Most penalties in a season.
Ever.
Most penalty yards in a season.
Ever.
The bully mentality.
Be careful what you wish for.
If you believe penalties are a good thing, you didn’t watch the BCS Championship game last night.
Did you see Nick Saban’s face turn crimson-red when his Alabama team got its first penalty of the game?
Late in the fourth quarter.
Up 21-0.
I thought he was going to kill someone.
Hue Jackson’s ego kicked in again at the NFL trade deadline.
With Mr. Davis just laid to rest.
Jackson was calling all the shots in Oakland.
And he decided that overpaying for a 31-year-old semi-retired quarterback was the right move to make.
Now I must say, I was very impressed with Carson Palmer.
At times.
And I really don’t hate that trade.
And I am excited about this quarterback of the past being our quarterback of the future.
But it’s amazing that Jackson didn’t tear his ACL by making that knee-jerk trade.
We didn’t need to do it.
And we we certainly didn’t need to mortgage the future for a guy who was spending his days walking on the beach.
But we did.
Maybe Jackson thought he was starring in the remake of Heaven Can Wait.
Palmer tried to make the best of it.
But in the end, the Raiders fell short.
Not Hue Jackson.
The Raiders.
If you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe him.
These were his words immediately after we lost that season-ending home game to the Chargers.
“I’m pissed at my team.”
“I’m pissed at my team because when you have those kind of opportunities, you’ve got to do it and we didn’t do it.”
“I’m not making no more excuses for nobody.”
Aside from a personal foul for flubbing the english language -- and who am I to talk.
"Not making no more excuses for nobody."
Really?
YOU ARE THE COACH.
YOU ARE THE LEADER.
YOU ARE THE BOSS.
YOU ARE WE.
Jackson capped off his news conference with a statement that finally made some sense.
And proved to be quick prophetic.
“I know one thing, this team needs an attitude adjustment.”
Now you’re onto something Hue.
I think we just got one.
Rise up Raider Nation.
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