Making a case to coach the Raiders
— -- October 9, 2014
Mr. Mark Davis
Owner, Oakland Raiders
7000 Coliseum Way
Oakland, CA 94621
Dear Mr. Davis:
It is my understanding that with the recent departure of coach Dennis Allen your organization now has an opening at the position of head coach. Please consider this cover letter, and a résumé to be provided upon request, to be my formal application for the job.
I am humbled by the opportunity to join the NFL coaching fraternity. However, when compared to the current crop of available coaches, as well as the Raiders' performance over the past decade and your company's less than distinguished history in the coaching arts, I feel that I could be a tremendous asset to your franchise and I thank you, in advance, for the time and opportunity to make my case in this cover letter.
First, let me state up front that I do not have any NFL playing experience to speak of, just like 26 of the 32 men currently coaching on Sundays. I do not have any major college football playing experience either, just like Bill Belichick and Mike McCarthy. I paid for school with a D-I wrestling scholarship, which, I assume, automatically puts me ahead of former Chiefs head coach and current Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley, who played golf in college.
That being said, I am perfectly willing to wear Sansabelt slacks, use a sliding moral scale with off-the-field issues based solely on a player's talent level, sleep on a couch in my office, pretend special teams is one-third of the game, say things like "next man up" to the media with a straight face and spend six hours breaking down film that should require only two hours to watch. Also, unlike that former Lions assistant coach, I almost always wear pants when using the fast food drive-thru lane. And while I consider it unbecoming to discuss salary figures at this juncture, I can assure you of one thing: My salary demands will be far less than the roughly $27 million Notre Dame and Kansas are paying Charlie Weis NOT to coach.
Mr. Davis, I will be the eighth full-time head coach you've hired since 2002 and, frankly, should I fail miserably I think it would provide a comforting bit of continuity for your fans. The real Black Hole in Oakland is the head coach's office. Art Shell went 2-14. He's part of a coaching legacy that has averaged 11 losses a season during the past decade.
Now, I ask you: How could Coach Flem possibly do any worse? Lane Kiffin, remember him? He was like 17 when you hired him straight out of some student intern program and he rewarded you by going 5-15 after selecting JaMarcus Russell, the biggest draft bust in NFL history -- a choice I questioned publicly, at his pro day at LSU and again in print before the draft. Tom Cable went 17-27 and punched an assistant coach, breaking his jaw. So let me make this vow to you right now: If you make me the Raiders' next coach, I promise not to sucker punch any of my employees in the face.
Admit it, I'm kinda growing on you, aren't I?
I also strongly believe that I stack up rather well against your current list of candidates. Mike Holmgren hasn't coached in seven years (me neither!) and the last time he was in charge of a team (as president in Cleveland from 2010-2012) the Browns lost 34 games in three seasons. Your current interim coach, Tony Sparano, was 29-32 in Miami. It's not hard to see why. His first bit of advice to our team, which ranks last in offense and last in run defense, was to have the players "smile" more. As a highly respected offensive line coach, Sparano is a run-first guy in charge of a team ranked dead last in rushing and built around pure open-field speed (and little else, as far as I can tell).
Now, I'm not saying Sparano is too old school, but when he was with the Dolphins his idea of offensive innovation was to recycle a 75-year-old scheme and call it the Wildcat. And I'm not saying he lacks a certain flair for motivation, either, but the first thing Sparano did was conduct one of those hopelessly hokey "bury the football" ceremonies on your practice field.
Moving forward, as your head coach and right-hand man, it would be my job to ask the tough, intellectual and logistical questions no one else is either sharp enough or brave enough to consider. Such as: If we bury a football on our practice field every time something goes horribly wrong with the Raiders, where will we scrimmage with all our fields covered in little football funeral molehills?
I know you said this job opening is "enticing." (In a survey this summer of the most desirable teams to play for, NFL players begged to differ, ranking our Raiders dead last.) I do have to say, though, I love your spirit. That level of delusion is what first made me think you were the kind of person who might just hire a writer for a head coach. Also, it's absolutely adorable that after the worst decade in the history of professional sports you still think you have a shot at someone like Jim Harbaugh or Jon Gruden. Harbaugh is completely nuts, but he's not that crazy. And when Gruden was your coach in 2001, I was talking to him in the Raiders' locker room after a win and he turned to me and said, "I gotta get the hell outta here, man." I said, "Oh, sorry, you need to get home, need to get going?" And he replied, waving at his surroundings, "No, no, no. I need to get the hell out of here." So, my guess is there will be no Return of Chucky.
Now that we've eliminated most of my fellow applicants, I think at this point it's appropriate to share some of my rebuilding philosophies with you. I don't believe defenses win championships anymore. I don't think special teams are important enough to even practice every day. I don't care how many penalties we get -- the Seahawks led the league in flags last year. In fact, I believe in holding on offense and committing pass interference on every play, knowing that the refs simply can not throw a flag on every snap.
We're 0-4 with the Chargers on deck. This season's a wash. So don't expect me to punt or attempt a field goal once we cross the 50. I believe strongly in the "second" line of scrimmage -- pitching, lateraling and throwing the ball to other players after a completion. I believe in deactivating perfectly healthy players so they'll be healthy and rested for a playoff run in December. To replace them I may sign and activate one or more fans from the Black Hole before each home game.
As your new head coach, I want you to know that I believe strongly in the Barry Switzer approach to winning a Super Bowl -- build a team so loaded with talent, anyone smart enough to get out of his own way could coach it to a championship. To pull that off, my main focus after you hire me to coach the Raiders will be to fix the real problems on our team: picking eight first-round busts in the last 11 drafts; somehow being $31 million over the cap in 2012 and with $55 million in dead money in 2013; trading for Carson Palmer; acting as a 401k plan for old guys like Maurice Jones-Drew, Justin Tuck and Antonio Smith; and getting rid of former CEO Amy Trask.
In other words, after you hire me to coach the Raiders my first order of business will be to ask you to remove yourself and your front-office cohorts from the day-to-day operations of my team.
In closing, I'd like to leave you with one final pledge.
After I take over as head coach of the Raiders, after I coax a .500 season out of this Island of Misfit Toys you call a roster, after I clean up the front office, finish my draft board and lay down a rock-solid plan to transform your current Commitment to Excrement back into a Commitment to Excellence, we both know what's going to happen next. On the eve of the draft you're going to fire me, blow up everything I've done, select a punter in the first round and have your new GM, Matt Millen, trade three first-round picks to the Browns for our new player/coach/social media coordinator Johnny Manziel.
When that happens I just want to say up front: I get it, no hard feelings.
That's just the Raider Way.
Sincerely,
David Fleming
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