The first name on the Raiders list of coaching candidates won’t be taking the job in Oakland as Jim Harbaugh opted to return to Ann Arbor rather than remain in the Bay Area.
That’s left interim head coach Tony Sparano reportedly in the mix to get the interim dropped from his title in Oakland for the 2015 season. Sparano was 3-9 after taking over the Raiders, which was an improvement on their 0-4 start, and the team did play better, if not always well, for Sparano in the latter stages of the season. Sparano will meet with owner Mark Davis at some point and on Monday he went the public route to sell himself for the job.
“All I want to do right now is be the head coach of the Raiders,” Sparano said, via CSNBayArea.com. “So how badly? Very, very badly. This is my team. I left my team today and I’m looking forward to starting over again with them. Those decisions will be made down the road. As far as anything else with me goes, I only have one concern right now. It’s being the head coach of the Oakland Raiders. … We made some changes. We did some things in that way and I think that there’s a clear spark between me and the players and my message to the players here. I think that anybody that doesn’t see that isn’t really looking hard enough.”
Sparano talked about how young the Raiders were in 2014 and how little continuity there’s been on the coaching front in recent years, two things that certainly would seem to work in favor of sticking around for the long haul. The Raiders may feel that they can get that continuity with their next hire, who they can choose from a wider list of options than coaches who were on Dennis Allen’s staff when Allen was fired early this season.
