Oakland Raiders: Is There A Schism Developing On This Team?

The Oakland Raiders, by all accounts, are a team that gets along and has great chemistry – but a few recent comments may point to a building schism on this team.

With the Oakland Raiders‘ season now over, thanks to a 27-14 drubbing by the Houston Texans and now our attention turns to the offseason. This is typically the time of year we writers read the tea leaves, interpret the omens, and connect the dots – which may or may not really exist anywhere but in our fevered imaginations.

Since the end of Oakland’s season, there have been a number of different omens floating out of team HQ – and not all of them having to do with a seemingly impending relocation to Sin City. Specifically, there are a couple of stray dots, that if connected in a certain way, could point to a real schism developing on this team.

This is not to say it does — it is merely to say, it could.

Following that season ending loss in Houston, there was a lot of speculation about the fate of HC Jack Del Rio’s coaching staff – in particular, the fate of DC Ken Norton Jr.

A good chunk of Raider Nation has been calling for his head and demanding he get pink slipped. Of course, to be fair, the torch and pitchfork brigade has been circling Norton’s office since roughly week two of this season. And after giving up more than 1,000 yards of offense and 69 points in those two weeks, it’s hard to fault them for it.

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But Norton’s continued employment has been the subject of much discussion, debate, and speculation all season long. Given that the defensive unit didn’t improve over last season’s performance – and in truth, gave up far more “explosive plays” than they did in 2015 – some seemed to take it as a given that Norton would be packing up his office once the Raiders were bounced from the playoffs.

Except, that didn’t happen. Or at least, hasn’t happened just yet, anyway. But in all likelihood, it’s not going to happen and Oakland will be rolling with Norton as the DC next season.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that everything is just hunky-dory in the Oakland locker room.

In a couple of Tweets following the team’s playoff ouster, Bruce Irvin said something that, at the time, didn’t raise many eyebrows. But perhaps, it should have. On January tenth, a couple of days after Oakland’s season ended – and with whispers and rumors about his fate swirling about – Irvin gave a Twitter shout-out to Norton.

That’s all well and good. Irvin enjoys playing for Norton and supports his DC. We get it. Nothing more to see there.

However, a few minutes later, not satisfied with a full-throated endorsement, Irvin doubled down on his support for the embattled DC by Tweeting this:

And a short time later, just to make sure we’d gotten the point, Irvin again felt the need to reiterate his support for Norton by re-Tweeting a stat from Pro Football Focus.

Now, some might simply see that as a player supporting his coach and expressing his belief in the system said coach runs. Fair enough.

But it’s the tail end of both of those Tweets that should have raised a few eyebrows. Specifically, his assertion that “everyone must buy in.” It might have been an innocuous throw-away line once. But he doubled down on the line in the subsequent Tweet that proved – statistically speaking – that Seattle’s defensive scheme, which Norton has stubbornly been attempting to emulate, has been proven effective.

All of this begs the question – who wasn’t buying in? Because that is the clear implication of those words – that somebody wasn’t all in with Norton or the system.

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Now, some might not connect the dots in the same way and not believe he’s calling anybody out at all. Which is entirely fine. Not everybody is going to see things the same way.

But one very strong possibility that could be considered is that Irvin was – what the cool kids apparently call Sub-Tweeting – none other then Del Rio himself. Irvin’s words could be construed to mean that Del Rio hasn’t entirely bought into the system Norton has been trying to get off the ground and has perhaps been something of a hinderance.

Del Rio comes from a strong defensive background. And he has some definite thoughts and ideas about how a defense should be run and should perform. That could be seen when he briefly took play calling duties away from Norton when the defense was getting absolutely shredded.

But Norton comes from a strong defensive background as well. He also comes from a team that had a tremendous amount of success running that same scheme.

Undoubtedly, some might be asking – why does this matter? Why is this important?

It’s important and it matters because if there is a growing schism between Del Rio and his players – players who, by all accounts, love playing for Norton and are loyal to him – it could bode ill further down the road. Like say, if the defense underperforms again early next season and Del Rio opts to make a switch – or take over defensive play calling duties himself.

Some believe that chemistry is overrated. And perhaps it is. But there most definitely needs to be trust between player and coach. It’s more than apparent that Del Rio has absolute faith and trust in Derek Carr and the offense. But can the same be said for his defense?

And if there is no trust between the coach and his players – what happens then? Nothing good, that’s what.

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Perhaps this is simply a case of reading way too much into somebody’s Tweets. Entirely possible. Maybe even likely. But the fact that Irvin chose to use those words – not once, but twice – at the very time Norton’s fate was hanging in the balance is curious. At best.

He is right about one thing though. To find success, everybody has to buy in – from the coaches to every single player on the roster.