Cable comes out of closet, Raider Nation can’t quit team

By Os Davis  |   Thursday, November 13, 2008  |  Comments( 132 )

Oakland Raiders
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Whoa, has Coach Carroll recovered from his apoplexy yet? Somebody bring the man some virtual oxygen! For those of you who may have missed it, senior writer Anthony Carroll’s sustained rant published Wednesday on RealFootball365.com simply tore into the Oakland Raiders and Al Davis (OK, mostly Al Davis, really), covering all the team’s woes with 15 vitriolic reasons to just quit the silver and black.

Carroll called out the Raiders properly, from turnover differential (minus-54 over the past six seasons) to the paradoxical fat increase in franchise value ($285 million since 2002). Dude went a tad far in predicting wins and losses for 2009, but he made his point.

For the here and now, though, this Raider Nation tourist remains focused on Carroll’s seventh reason.

"Bill Callahan, Norv Turner, Art Shell, Lane Kiffin and Tom Cable: Either Al Davis is the worst evaluator of talent ever, or he sticks his nose where it doesn’t belong after hiring a coach, or both. (Both)."

No, no tangents on (the admittedly over-worshiped by this author) Jon Gruden are forthcoming, no “What the hell has happened since Gruden left town?” or stuff on “What was Chucky’s secret, anyway, bearing in mind that immediately preceding his time in the Raiders’ big chair were the Joe Bugel and Mike White eras, not to mention the steady slow decline of the Art Shell ‘empire’?”

Oops.

In any case, a story that had been speculated upon near and far can now be held as true (when you read it on ESPN, you know it’s true): Cable has come out of the metaphorical closet to announce that he’s the Raider play-caller.

Carroll’s probably right when he declares that generally “Oakland can’t pick or develop its own talent,” harshly declaring JaMarcus Russell and Darren McFadden as possibly among that lot. After all – and this doesn’t really bear repeating but consistently becomes imperative in any discussion of the Raider present – the team still has no viable wide receivers at all. And let’s not get started on the line populated by the likes of Robert Gallery and Kwame Harris which has strapped the fat cat for tens of millions while continuing to allow the QBs to take a pummeling ... oops.

Limited roster depth and (let’s face it) limited talent at a few key spots aside, surely this Raiders team could be a tad more productive than, say, two games of more than 20 points scored (both occasions during Kiffin’s tenure). The team could be a bit better than bottom 10 in essentially every major statistical category on defense and passing offense. Most of all, the Raiders should be better than 2-9; after all, last season at this point, Kiffin had an Oakland squad with less talent at a record of ... oh, never mind.

The thing is that the Raiders appear to be boasting quite a few talented athletes. Guys like McFadden and the monstrous fastballer Russell. The incomparable Nnamdi Asomugha, who is so dominant that passing offenses develop game plans to completely avoid his coverage. Chaz Schilens. Zach Miller. Gibril Wilson and Kalimba Edwards. Why hasn’t this roster jelled on either side of the ball? Can it? And haven’t other teams with finite skilled players and multiple injuries adapted with key draftees and/or scintillating offensive game plans (Atlanta Falcons, Miami Dolphins)?

Questions like those, my friends, are now on the outed Cable. For despite his cowardly dodges in last week’s post-game talk that had him blaming a Carroll-like list of other reasons extraneous to the actual lame play-calling itself for the loss to the Carolina Panthers, Cable has definitively taken responsibility for whatever the offense produces – dare we hope it to be as high as scoring the third TD of the Cable era or even (gasp) the first multiple-TD game?

The worst thing about the (interim) coaching situation currently is that it may be irrelevant. Even closing out the season to give Oakland a 2-14 or 3-13 record and No. 2 overall pick in the 2009 draft won’t get Cable canned; should he literally survive the 2008 slate and the offseason, Cable has to be considered the default choice for head coach in '09 now that offensive coordinator Greg Knapp has been utterly publicly discredited and defensive coordinator Rob Ryan is a dollars-to-donuts odds-on favorite to bolt after the gun is fired to cap Week 17.

You think the roster’s a mess? Wait until the staff-wide shakeup in the coaching ranks prior to 2009.

Sorry to say, though: The Cable era will probably stay. At least through, what, the seventh hame of next season? After all, with the reputation of this franchise at such a serious low, what available or potentially available coach would willing to take the job and thus Davis’ eccentric BS?

Hmmm...

Wait a minute: I’ve got it! Rod Marinelli!

(And a million Raider fans boil over like Carroll . . .)
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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's...
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