The first Denver Broncos assistant to land a head coaching job wasn’t offensive coordinator Adam Gase. Instead, the Oakland Raiders are expected to announce the hiring of Broncos defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio as their new head coach Wednesday.
Del Rio reportedly met with Raiders owner Mark Davis and General Manager Reggie McKenzie Tuesday night, along with Hall of Fame coach and former broadcaster John Madden Tuesday night. Madden has been a long time supporter of Del Rio and presumably that weighed heavy on the team’s decision to hire the former Jacksonville Jaguars head coach.
Del Rio had to beat out interim coach Tony Sparano along with former Cleveland Browns Head Coach Eric Mangini, Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Pat Shurmer and Indianapolis Colts offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton. The Raiders also interviewed former head coach Mike Shanahan and Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell.
With the exception of Hamilton and Bevell, the Raiders seemed intent on hiring an NFL coaching retread to take over their team. Of the former head coaches they interviewed, only Shanahan has appeared on any other team’s public list. Sparano and Shurmer were both failures in their last head coaching jobs. Mangini has already been fired twice from head coaching positions, once with the Jets and once with the Browns. In fact, Shurmer was the guy that replaced Mangini when he was fired by Cleveland in 2010. How two of the worst coaches in Cleveland Browns history ended up on the Raiders’ short list is a mystery.
The bigger mystery is why they would go with Del Rio, who led the Jaguars to the playoffs only twice in nine seasons, replacing a fired Tom Coughlin who had the Jaguars in the playoffs almost every year and went on to win two Super Bowls with the New York Giants.
Regardless of his past failures, Del Rio did help the Broncos finish with a Top Three defense in 2014. With names like Shanahan, Gase, John Fox, Seattle’s Dan Quinn, Doug Marrone and already hired head coaches Todd Bowles and Rex Ryan out there, Del Rio didn’t seem to be a serious contenderation for any open position.
The Raiders have not had a winning season since 2003 and gone through eight head coaches in that span.
