Davis balks at contracts for assistants
Raiders owner Mark Davis and head coach Dennis Allen met Tuesday evening, but it was more about the assistant coaches’ contracts and plans for the 2014 season than about Allen’s job security.
As The Chronicle reported Dec. 29, Allen has been set to return for a third season and any speculation about his future was “way overblown,” league sources said.
Davis confirmed after Tuesday night’s meeting that Allen will remain the coach. “It was never in doubt,” he said.
Allen, who has a four-year deal, is coming off back-to-back 4-12 seasons
his first two years, but general manager Reggie McKenzie is firmly in his corner.
Though McKenzie and Allen were pushing for two-year contracts for the assistant coaches, Davis held firm on one-year deals, and five coaches have agreed to that. The names of the five have not been confirmed, but league sources said offensive line coach Tony Sparano balked and is set to join the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ staff.
Sparano did a nice job with an injury-plagued line, subbing in young players for a unit that paved the way for the Raiders’ 12th-ranked running game (125 yards per game).
Only two of Allen’s assistants — offensive coordinator Greg Olson and linebackers coach Bob Sanders — had contracts beyond 2013 when the week started. Sparano and special-teams coach Bobby April, like Olson and Sanders, joined the staff last season but got only one-year deals after having been fired by the Jets and Eagles, respectively, the previous year.
Olson has another year left on his contract. Defensive coordinator Jason Tarver has a deal that expired and he hasn’t signed a new contract.
At the end of the 2012 season, McKenzie wanted the assistants’ deals to be rolled over for another season so that they would continue to have two-year deals. Davis said no.
Coaches want the standard two-year security. The lack of security that comes with a shorter contract has a dual effect: Assistant coaches won’t want to come to Oakland and current coaches might want to leave. “Quality assistants don’t work on one-year deals,” one league insider said.
Davis is clearly not married to keeping Allen past this year. With $70 million in cap space this offseason, there will be no acceptable excuse for another 4-12 season. Allen knows that. Why would Davis, still not sold on Allen as much as McKenzie, want to pay an assistant coach a second year’s salary if he decides to clean house after next season?
It’s not a stretch to say that Davis already is taking a leap of faith by bringing back the current staff for a third year after two straight 1-8 finishes.
Allen is only the fourth coach since the NFL-AFL merger to take over a team coming off two non-losing years, have two losing seasons and then come back for a third. The other three are Dave Campo (Dallas 2000-02), Joe Walton ( Jets ’83-89) and Ed Biles (Houston ’81-83), according to the Associated Press.
Walton made the playoffs in his third season, Biles got fired after an 0-6 start and Campo went 5-11 before getting axed.
Proof again that this Raiders staff is not exactly a normal case. And like his late father, Al, Mark Davis isn’t going to feel compelled to do something because that’s the way everyone else does it.