Raiders’ Walsh sharp with words, philosophy

By Anthony Carroll  |   Wednesday, August 02, 2006  |  Comments( 23 )

Oakland Raiders
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"I don't feel like I've been in retirement at all."

For eight years, Oakland Raiders offensive coordinator Tom Walsh has been out of the game of football, last leading Idaho State's program to a failing 5-14 mark. Since his departure from the game, however, Walsh hasn't let the game depart him.

"It's not like I ever went away," he said in his first public interview since being hired by head coach Art Shell. "You know, I could be mayor on the governor's board for tourism council in Idaho, or whatever. That doesn't mean that my brain was erased. If you're out there bucking hay, you're still going to think about [football]."

Drilled with the questions fans have been asking themselves all offseason, Walsh remained sharp with his answers.

"So much focus is who is going to be on the opening billboards of the few first seconds of ESPN. I said, 'look, don't worry about being better than your contemporaries, don't worry about being better than your predecessors, be better than yourself.'"

The simplistic, but confident aura carried by Walsh remained prevalent throughout the entirety of the interview. Even in explaining the team's most multifaceted instrument--the offensive playbook--Walsh seemed to have all the answers. "Running the power off-tackle, throwing the ball down field, all those traditions have come down really for decades, and so we have to get back to that. There's no fancy way about it, we're not going to come out and finesse people. It's not about finesse, it's about being physical, it's about dominating, and it's about imposing your will on the opponent."

For the Raiders, "imposing their will" is something that has remained absent from their game since the team's Super Bowl run in 2002. Dating back to the franchise's 48-21 collapse against Tampa Bay, Oakland has dropped 35 games in three long years, winning just 13 along the way. Offensively, the team has ranked 25th, 20th, and 21st in yardage, respectively, from 2003-2005, producing three different leading rushers and receivers in each season.

Alongside Hall of Fame offensive lineman and head coach Art Shell, Walsh stands confident that Oakland has the leadership to dig itself out of a three-year deficit.

"How spoiled can you get?" he rhetorically asked him self. "It's like having the Encyclopedia Britannica on a shelf waiting for you every day and you're the only guy that's got access to these people [the coaching staff]. The rest of the league doesn't [have access], these guys do. They need to tap into those sources, and they have done an excellent job of doing that."

On the field, Walsh is equally impressed with his cast of players. "This whole team--the work ethic, the attention to detail, the understanding of what [coach Shell's] aspirations are and his vision is for this organization to be able to return it to its days of greatness that we had experienced for so many years--the players are working hard, they are doing an exemplary job."

Of the many improvements on the roster, Walsh mentioned the newfound speed on both sides of the ball. "The upgrade in team speed, it's phenomenal. I mean these guys can run," he claimed. With the late-April additions of draft picks Michael Huff, Thomas Howard, and Darnell Bing, Oakland's defense is as quick as it has been in years, including those that involved the playoffs. Along with a strong rookie class, second-year speedsters Fabian Washington and Stanford Routt are set to assume an even larger role in the 2006 campaign.

"It's downhill running, it's power football. We're not lateral-stepping, that's just not our philosophy," said Walsh.

After three years of backpedaling, Tom Walsh will use the '06 stage to implement the old-school Raiders philosophy of the '60s, '70s, and '80s.

In a franchise known for its illustrious history, that's a first step in the right direction.

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Anthony Carroll can be contacted at acarroll@realfootball365.com
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About Anthony Carroll

Anthony Carroll began writing for RealFootball365.com on Sept. 26, 2005, making him one of the longest tenured contributors to the “365” team. As a senior writer, Anthony has taken on the task of delivering original content to the silver and black faithful year round, despite having to deal...
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CommentsComments: 23  |  Sign Up  View all comments
No.1
Christafur		09:25 AM
08/02/2006
Tom Walsh huh? We'll look at it like this. If you was a coach and didn't want to be bother by a offensive coordinator every game...
No.2
One Eyed Bandit		09:25 AM
08/02/2006
Please man. We have seen this guy before and brace yourself for a long year. That team speed he is so wowed about is how the game...
No.3
John Carrion		12:14 PM
08/02/2006
Tom Walsh is horrible. If he was anywhere a decent coordinator a NFL team would have picked him up after he was fired. The...
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