In a league which currently has the Jacksonville Jaguars occupying space, the Oakland Raiders may have the most depressing team in football. The team had a ton of cap space over the offseason and spent it on a bunch of aging veterans who have not managed to improve the Raiders in any discernible way. They’ve fired their head coach and the team’s starting quarterback, rookie Derek Carr, just sprained his MCL and his ankle in Sunday’s thrashing at the hands of the Miami Dolphins. The team’s interim head coach will be Tony Sparano, a figure who somehow inspires less enthusiasm than Dennis Allen.
This is a team hasn’t been relevant since Rich Gannon was throwing passes to Jerry Rice.
Still, Raiders owner Mark Davis believes that the Raiders head coaching job will be “enticing.”
“The organization itself is in a very good position to move forward, whether Tony Sparano wins this year and becomes the permanent head coach of the Raiders or we bring in another head coach,” Davis said. “I believe the salary cap, contracts, all of those things, I think we’re going to have $60-$65 million in cap space next year and so it’s quite an encouraging thing and enticing for a new head coach if in fact we find one and go through a search that this could be an organization they would want to be with.”
Yes, because one can look back all the way to… this past offseason to see what the Raiders were able to do with ample amounts of cap space. The franchise has endured a decade of failure and it’s hard to see what is enticing about the franchise at this point and time. Remember, the team hired Dennis Allen when Allen had no professional head coaching experience. It’s going to be hard to find a good and experienced coach who’s willing to risk his reputation on Oakland.
