Reggie McKenzie Taking a Bigger Picture Approach to Rebuilding Raiders
By Kevin Saito
Oakland Raiders‘ GM Reggie McKenzie is perhaps re-learning something most all of us are taught as children – no matter what you do, you’re never going to make everybody happy.
One of the overriding narratives since the end of the first wave of free agency has been McKenzie’s failure to land one of the marquee free agents who hit the open market. It’s something that has been talked about, dissected, and of course, bemoaned and criticized by television talking heads, sports journalists, and even a large segment of the Raider faithful.
McKenzie has been raked over the coals a million different ways for failing to sign Ndamukong Suh, Randall Cobb, Jeremy Maclin, DeMarco Murray, Julius Thomas, and even among others, Terrance Knighton. Pop on to Twitter, or the comments section of any article really, and you’ll likely see comments like “same old Raiders,” “get ready for another terrible season,” or of course, the old standard, “Raiders suck.”
It seems that some folks out there aren’t too fond of McKenzie’s work and consider his free agent haul this year to be an unmitigated disaster. And for fans of the team, beyond starving for a winning season again, it’s completely understandable. Some fans want splash, flash, and big names wearing Silver and Black.
But there is a question that Raiders fans must ask themselves – would you prefer landing a marquee name – a Suh or a Cobb – and some instant gratification, or would you prefer an organization built the right way, built not for flash in the pan success, but for sustained, long term success?
Something the Raider faithful have to wrap their minds around is the fact that Cobb and Suh, though they would have been nice to have, were not going to fix all of the woes on this Oakland team alone. With all of the holes Oakland has to fill, with all of their areas of need, McKenzie had a lot of work to do. He still has a lot of work to do. And he’s doing it. Slowly. Methodically. Intelligently.
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There is no question that the Raiders, after acquiring the likes of Rodney Hudson, Dan Williams, Curtis Lofton, and Nate Allen, among others, are a much better team today than they were before the start of free agency.
None of McKenzie’s 2015 additions are the sexiest pick ups ever. They won’t overwhelm you with star power. But accumulating a lot of star power is certainly no guarantee of success either. Just ask last year’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers team who went out and acquired big name free agents like Alterraun Verner, Michael Johnson, Anthony Collins, Josh McCown, and Clinton McDonald, how adding that much star power worked out for them.
Last we checked, Tampa Bay was drafting ahead of Oakland this season.
If you’re still not convinced, go ahead and ask the Philadelphia Eagles how signing on all of those marquee free agents back in 2011 worked for them. Ask them how adding the likes of Nnamdi Asomugha, Jason Babin, Steve Smith, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, Donald Lee, and Cullen Jenkins worked out for them.
Ask them if adding all of those marquee names was a guarantee of success or not. The 8-8 record the year of the “Dream Team” would suggest that it’s not.
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And speaking of marquee names, let’s check back in on the Miami Dolphins are doing a year from now, when Suh’s cap hit is in excess of $25 million. Will they have the money and the pieces to field a competitive team? Or are they in win now, damn the future mode? Given the amount of money they’ve thrown around this offseason, it seems to be the latter.
Marquee names are great. Having elite players on the roster is a pretty great thing, and they can definitely help elevate the play of the team as a whole. But they alone are not going to win you championships. And coming from an organization that believes that wholeheartedly, it is something that McKenzie has a very intimate understanding of.
McKenzie understands that building a team for long term, sustained success relies on having a number of role players who can step in and have an impact. While making a huge splash in free agency with some insanely lucrative contracts is great for some teams, for McKenzie, it’s all about the bigger picture, and building a team that can have long term success.
To borrow an old, tired cliché, it seems that McKenzie is indeed playing chess while many others are still playing checkers.
Look at the teams who have had long term, sustained success over the last twenty years or so. Are they teams who went out and spent lavishly? Or are they teams who found players who perhaps aren’t marquee names, but who fit their scheme, bought into their program, and have played their hearts out.
The New England Patriots. The Green Bay Packers. The Indianapolis Colts. The Seattle Seahawks. The Denver Broncos. The San Francisco 49ers – for a brief four year window anyway.
Have those teams been successful because they went out and dropped an insanely large pile of cash on free agents? No. They’ve built from within. They’ve drafted very well. They’ve added complimentary pieces through free agency. And they’ve developed their own players.
Those teams have been successful in the long term because they did not go get the high priced hired guns, but because they’ve built slowly, methodically, and intelligently. And McKenzie is using their blueprint to build the Raiders back up again.
It’s been an agonizingly slow process for Raider fans, but it is one that should begin to start bearing a little fruit this season.
McKenzie has made more than his share of mistakes since taking over in Oakland, to be sure. But he’s been going through the process and rebuilding this organization with an eye on the future, with an eye on the long term viability and success of the franchise.
In the end, McKenzie wants what Raider fans want – for the Silver and Black to win championships. And not just one, but multiple. Across many years. And the only way to do that is to build a franchise from the ground up, and to build it the right way. There are no shortcuts if you want to restore the luster to a once proud organization.
It’s not always pretty. Sometimes it’s downright frustrating. But McKenzie’s methods are effective, and he is building the Raiders back up again the right way. For the long term. Oakland fans just need to take a deep breath and look at the bigger picture that McKenzie is putting into place.
Once Oakland starts winning again – and they will – the marquee names will be flocking to the Raiders, eager to play for a championship team and winning culture.
Next: Raiders: 6 Questions That Need Answers Ahead of the Draft