Should the Raiders Make Any Big Coaching Changes?

The Oakland Raiders season came to an end with a whimper on Sunday, losing big to the Kansas City Chiefs. And less than 24 hours later, there was big news as the team hired Mike Mayock to be their next general manager.

We’ve already taken a look at what to make of the Mayock hire, but what about other big moves for the Raiders?

Let’s start by saying, DUH, Jon Gruden will be back as head coach, despite finishing the season 4-12. I know there are some fans who were hoping Mark Davis might be as reactionary as his father was and fire him, but that’s not going to happen any time soon.

But what about the other coaches?

I think both coordinators are safe. First off, Greg Olson isn’t really the offensive coordinator, Jon Gruden is. And if there are problems with the Raiders offense again in 2019, I could see Olson being the fall guy. But the fact is, the offense improved throughout the 2018 season and there are reasons to be optimistic about it moving forward. Because of that, I just don’t think there will be motivation for Gruden to have a scapegoat at this point.

The defense, on the other hand, is a little bit different. I think it’s hard to be upset with Paul Guenther as a coordinator given the lack of talent he was given to work with. But at the same time, this Raiders defense was one of the worst in franchise history. Plus, there were high expectations for the trio of rookies, PJ Hall, Arden Key and Maruice Hurst. Of those three, only Hurst lived up to the hype and some could even argue that he was a tiny bit disappointing considering he was viewed as a top ten talent on the field.

All that said, Guenther absolutely deserves another year to work on this defense. He came into the job expecting to have Khalil Mack and instead was left with basically no pass rushers outside of a disgruntled Bruce Irvin and a rookie who wasn’t ready to be a starter in Arden Key.

So the coordinators should be safe, but what about other coaches? Yup, you knew it was coming. We’ve finally gotten to the Tom Cable discussion.

Tom Cable absolutely does not deserve to be back with the team. He was likely behind the decision to take Kolton Miller over Derwin James and the decision to trade up in order to draft Brandon Parker. But besides that, he has a track record of failing to develop lineman that seems to have followed him to Oakland.

Cable really hasn’t done anything that would justify keeping him around but the fact of the matter is, Gruden isn’t going to part ways with him this quickly. He was one of Gruden’s favorite hires and he’s shown no signs of having changed his mind.

So sadly. while Cable is the coach that the Raiders should fire, I fully expect him back in Silver and Black next season.

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