Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis brought in John Madden to help with the interviews of prospective head coaches.
Mark Davis can talk macro theory all day and night, but the X’s and O’s of football? No thanks. Instead, Davis would prefer to bring it in his main dude, John Madden, while Davis interviews prospective head coaches for the Oakland Raiders. There’s no word on how tough acting Madden was during said interviews.
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“I know my limitations,” Davis told the San Jose Mercury News, “and I’m not an X’s and O’s guy. So I need somebody who knows X’s and O’s to sit with me and ask all the football questions.
“The other stuff, I can talk about—macro theory, all those things. But when you put the tape on and start looking at football and why did you do this or do that, I want somebody who knows why you did this.”
Few offer bring to the table the experience that John Madden has to offer. Of course, Davis could have saved all parties a little time and just studied a bit with the ultimate piece of football analysis that’s tied to John Madden. He could have just rolled the ambulance onto the field and started rattling off questions, but we suppose that wasn’t in the cards on the day Mike Shanahan arrived for an interview.
The Raiders are one of a handful of teams interviewing for a head coaching vacancy, and their search is especially an uphill battle given the state of the franchise. The Raiders were the last team in the league to win a game this season and they’re once again sitting in the bottom five of the standings to end the year.
The team had employed former Miami Dolphins head coach Tony Sparano as their interim head coach for much of the season, but there’s no indication that the team favors Sparano in its exhaustive search. It’s hard to imagine they wouldn’t hire Mike Shanahan if he’d be open to accepting their offer.
Davis is confident he’s searching for a coach in the right way, unafraid to fill in the gaps where his own knowledge fails him. Whether or not that’s what’s needed in this search will be determined in the coming seasons.
“As I said long ago, the one thing I know is what I don’t know,” Davis said. “I’m going to get people around me when I don’t know something to make sure I get it right.”
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