Why Jackson regrets meltdown after last Raiders game
ALAMEDA — In retrospect, Hue Jackson is willing to concede the scorched earth approach wasn’t the best strategy when it came to the end of his tenure as coach of the Raiders.
“I can laugh about it now,” Jackson told Bay Area media by conference call Wednesday.
Rewind to the 2011 season, and it was a tumultuous year even by Raiders standards. Owner Al Davis died from heart failure on Oct. 8. There was a void in the organizational power structure.
Yet if the Raiders beat the San Diego Chargers in the regularseason finale, they would reach the playoffs with a 9-7 record. The Chargers won going away, 38-26. If there was anyone more bitterly disappointed than the 58,721 fans in the Coliseum, it was Jackson.
Rather than shower, compose himself and put on a suit for the post-game press conference as he usually did, Jackson arrived quickly and in his in-game gear.
Jackson proceeded to criticize his team, defensive coordinator Chuck Bresnahan and promised he would take a bigger role in the organization going forward to make sure it never happened again.
Never mind that Jackson had no such authority. That power had been transferred to Mark Davis, with whom he did not connect anywhere near the way he did with Al Davis.
The post-game screed did not sit well with Mark Davis, and when Reggie McKenzie was hired as general manager, Jackson was out of a job.
When the Raiders host the Cleveland Browns Sunday at the Coliseum, it will be Jackson’s first game as a head coach in Oakland since he left. And Jackson believes the way he handled the aftermath of the Chargers loss was a valuable lesson.
“I know exactly what I was trying to convey, but obviously I did it in a wrong way, so you grow from that, you learn from that, and you move forward,” Jackson said.
Unlike some of his predecessors, Jackson revered Al Davis in public settings, calling him “coach Davis” and seeking his input rather than waiting for it to be offered. He broke down and cried on the field when the Raiders beat the Houston Texans in the game after Davis’ death.
Yet Jackson probably wouldn’t have been retained even if he’d held his tongue following the Chargers loss. He’d aligned himself with CEO Amy Trask, whose days were numbered when Mark Davis took control.
With McKenzie coming in with the idea of remaking the
Raiders in terms of salary structure — ridding the team of bad contracts and accepting the consequences in terms of a roster short on talent — a younger, more pliable coach was preferable. That coach was Dennis Allen.