THIS IS easy. I can't think of any situation in pro sports where an owner has gotten involved in the playing side of things and it's turned out to be a positive. It's always a negative.
Al Davis has gotten away with it because of his obvious ties to that side of things. But in recent years, his moves have all been scattershot — emotionally and monetarily driven.
You hire people to do a job, and you hold them to a high standard. They'll be fired, if they don't do the job.
So let them do that job.
Unfortunately with the Raiders, a coach or general manager is never going to get that opportunity.
Watching how the Super Bowl is being covered this week, I find something to be very telling regarding how the Raiders organization is perceived.
Randy Moss is the central star in Super Bowl XLII. Based on what he's doing this year, you'd think there would be an awful lot of conversation over what a dog he was last year.
Yet there's very little. What's that tell you? It tells you the national opinion was the Raiders had as much to do with Moss' lack of productivity as he did.
The Raiders are seen at this dysfunctional family, and it starts at the top.
As long as Al Davis continues to mettle — unless you get a truly independent guy like Bill Parcells, who's not going to pick up the phone when Al calls — I really don't think it matters who the next coach of the Raiders is.
The Raiders are like a home with foundation
Al Davis is flood damage.
Ideally, he would recognize that the game, to a degree, has passed him by. It's a young man's sport all the way through — from the personnel side to the coaching side to the players. You need an incredible amount of energy and passion.
At his age, anybody could question if he has the energy to tackle what this is — one of the league's biggest rebuilding projects.
But for Al Davis, this is his life. The Raiders are Al Davis. So any discussion of him taking a hands-off approach is pie in the sky. It's not going to happen.
There is no master plan. One year they're thinking super-short-term with Randy Moss. The next they're thinking super-long-term with JaMarcus Russell. It's a circus surrounding the decision-making core, and it doesn't seem like it's going to get any better anytime soon.
Even the biggest of optimists couldn't look at this and say: They're on the right path. Obviously, they're not.
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