JOHN MADDEN ON AL DAVIS

The fine folks at Sirius, who make our lives a lot easier by sending out transcribed portions of certain key interviews from the indispensable (except when they take calls from various assorted rambling yayhoos) NFL Radio channel, have provided us with a portion of John Madden’s comments regarding Raiders owner Al Davis and his Tuesday press conference. Madden, who coached the Raiders for ten years and who was presented for enshrinement in Canton by Al Davis, recently spoke with Adam Schein of The Sirius Blitz. “Well, it was one of those things that you could just see coming,” Madden said of the Lane Kiffin firing. “The Raiders weren’t winning and, of course, when that happens that kind of talk of the coach getting fired is always going to be there. I think this thing started over a year ago where Al Davis and Lane Kiffin didn’t get along. You didn’t know exactly when the end was going to come but you were pretty sure it was just right around the corner. I’ve felt that since the end of last season.” Madden was later asked what he would tell a coach who might be working for Al Davis in the future. “Just communicate with him,” Madden said. “I think that’s the thing. For some reason barriers have been built between the coaches and Al Davis. It was a totally different story when I was there, Adam. When I was there we just had five or six coaches and Ron Wolf was in the personnel department and Al Davis. So there were really less than ten of us and there were no barriers. I mean, everyone was right there together [and] we kind of did everything so we didn’t have any of these problems. And then as the game grew and the organization grew and you have more and more people and more and more assistants, I think instead of being closer and being part of each other, it looks to me like they just grew apart. And this is a situation that came to a head and Al Davis had to do something. “People say, ‘Why did he have that press conference and why did he go through everything?’ I think that he just heard so many things that he wanted to just straighten them out. And it was one of things, he was going to be damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. If he didn’t have a press conference they were going to say, ‘Why didn’t you come out? Why didn’t you talk to the media? Why didn’t you show yourself?’ And then if he does [have a press conference], ‘Why do you have to air all of your laundry in public?’ In that situation there was probably no right way to do it and if you want to criticize him and the Raiders, then either way that he chose he’s going to be criticized anyway.” As to the press conference, Madden had two observations. “One, he was making a coaching change and that announcement and that was one part of it,” Madden said. “And then I think all the things that he’s been living with the last maybe six months and hearing and not reacting to, he reacted to. That’s what I think. So I think it was a double agenda. One, a coaching change and, one, let’s get some things straight that have been said the last six months that I’ve been completely quiet about.” Finally, Madden addressed whether the situation in Oakland can be repaired. “I think it is fixable,” Madden said. “Anytime you have an organization and an owner that wants to win as badly as Al Davis wants to win, and will spend the money to win, I don’t think you have as many barriers as you think. Those are easy. The ones that would be tough is where you didn’t have any good players and you had an owner or an organization that didn’t want to spend any money to get good players.” Though some commenters think that our reaction to the Davis press conference means that we’re projecting the Raiders to win three of the next Super Bowls, we think that Davis and company have a real challenge on their hands. Frankly, Davis seems to be searching for another John Madden in an era where even John Madden wouldn’t have stayed John Madden for long. The game has changed dramatically. Al Davis hasn’t changed at all. In 2008, most NFL coaches who have positioned themselves for success are reluctant to defer to the owner when it comes to matters relating to football, and NFL coaches refuse to coach the team any way other than their way. And so Davis is looking for guys like Lane Kiffin and Tom Cable, men who haven’t landed on the “A” list and thus who don’t behave like “A” list coaches. Today, “A” list coaches want to buy the groceries; in Oakland, the coach is merely the chef in a pre-stocked kitchen. With the owner of the restaurant telling him how many times to stir the stew. In Madden’s day, few if any NFL coaches had the power and influence that many now possess. And so the biggest flaw in the Raiders’ approach to running an NFL team in the 21st Century is the failure of Al Davis to recognize that, even if he cracks open enough oysters named Kiffin or Cable and finds the next Madden, the next Madden will quickly realize that there are plenty of other places where he can coach a football team the way he wants to do it, not the way Al Davis wants it to be done. Especially when some college programs, where the head coach has been the king for a long time, are now paying as much or more money than Davis has been willing to pay his own head coaches.