Oakland Raiders: An Open Letter To OC Todd Downing

Oakland Raiders OC Todd Downing is taking a lot of heat for the team’s struggling offense this season – and deservedly so – which compels us to write him a heartfelt open letter.

Dear Todd,

When you stepped into the Oakland Raiders‘ Offensive Coordinator role after the team let your predecessor’s contact expire, so many of us had such high hopes for you.

Coming in, you vowed to add a few new wrinkles to Bill Musgrave‘s system, make it more modern, faster paced, and even more explosive and potent than it had been in 2016. You really had all of us buzzing and flying high, Todd.

Given that the Raiders had the sixth-ranked offense in the league last year – and having added weapons like Cordarrelle Patterson, Jared Cook, and Marshawn Lynch – you had the Raider Nation frothing at the mouth in ways it hadn’t been since the Rich Gannon era.

We really believed you were going to take an already great offense and make it even better.

Now, ten games into your tenure, most all of us who’d been excited by having a younger, more innovative mind in the OC’s chair than Musgrave, are punching ourselves in the face and beating our heads against the wall.

Even worse, most all of us are pining for the heady days of Musgrave’s vanilla offense. Yes, it’s that bad, Todd. You have stunk up the joint so bad as the OC, you actually have many of us wishing we could hit the rewind button and never let Bill freaking Musgrave walk out of the building.

Think we’re being hyperbolic or unfair, Todd? Well, let’s just do a little apples-to-apples comparison, shall we?

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In 2016, the Raiders had the league’s sixth-ranked offense, putting up about 373 yards (253 passing and 120 rushing) and 26 points a game. Oakland had the league’s seventh-ranked scoring offense in 2016, by the way.

The Raiders had an explosive, potent offense that seemed able to score from anywhere on the field at anytime.

This year though? Saying Oakland’s offense took a step back would be putting it mildly. With you in the big boy’s chair, Todd, Oakland’s offense has plummeted faster than Kevin Spacey’s career prospects.

With you calling the shots, Todd, Oakland now has the league’s twenty-first ranked offense, logging in with about 326 yards of total offense per game. And just in case your math skills are about as good as your skills calling plays, that’s down about 50 yards per game, Todd.

Oh, and let’s not forget, your offense, the one you vowed to make more modern and even more powerful? Yeah, at just a tick over 20 points a game, the Raiders now have the league’s twentieth-ranked scoring offense.

In ten games this season, this formerly high-powered, high-flying offense has scored 17 points or fewer in six of them.

Next: Oakland's Struggles Highlight Poor Offseason Decisions

That’s right, Todd. Your more efficient, modern, and explosive offense is scoring nearly a touchdown less than it did last season under an Offensive Coordinator whose playbook and offensive philosophy predates the Jurassic period.

Please, help us out here, Todd, because we genuinely don’t understand how this abomination has happened. You were given an offense that featured one of the league’s elite offensive lines, had playmakers like Amari Cooper, Michael Crabtree, Jalen Richard, DeAndre Washington, Seth Roberts – and then had Patterson, Cook, and Lynch added to the mix – and somehow, the Raiders have become less potent? Less explosive? Less – competent?

It boggles the mind to see just how you’ve managed to screw things up this badly. You were handed the keys to a Lamborghini Huracan and somehow, managed to turn it into a freaking Ford Pinto – old, rusty, doesn’t always start, and is completely prone to imploding if you hit it too hard.

In other words, you’ve somehow managed to turn something on the verge of being great into a flaming pile of garbage.

Now, to be fair, the blame doesn’t rest entirely with you. Receivers are dropping balls like they’re coated with anthrax. Players are fumbling like the balls are coated with butter. And even Derek Carr deserves some of the blame.

Carr simply hasn’t looked like himself since his back injury. He seems jumpy and skittish in the pocket, isn’t showing a lot of patience, isn’t stepping into his throws, and seems to be checking down far too quickly, far too often.

There is plenty of blame to go around when it comes to some of Oakland’s offensive struggles.

However, as the guy running the offense, your play calling has been atrocious. Your game plans even more predictable than Musgrave’s – and that’s really saying something. You don’t utilize your running backs – posting a league low in rushing attempts – and all too often, when facing say, a third and nine, you call for a five yard out.

The one thing we can all say about Musgrave is that he knew his players’ strengths and weaknesses. And he developed gameplans that, while perhaps not flashy, were efficient and took advantage of the strengths of the offense as well as the weaknesses of the opposing defenses.

That’s something you are failing miserably at, Todd. You don’t design gameplans that take advantage of your players’ strengths. And perhaps, even more damning, you don’t design gameplans that exploit the weaknesses of your opponents.

It’s almost like you sit in a room, by yourself, maybe playing the latest edition of Madden and simply jot down all the plays you want to run without thought or credence to what the team does well, or what your opponents don’t do well.

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Here’s the thing though, Todd. Real games aren’t like Madden. You can’t sit up in the booth, call your plays, and hope you can press the X and O buttons quickly enough to make it work. You actually need to scheme against real, live people.

Like your colleague, Ken Norton on the defensive side of the ball, it’s not all your fault, Todd. Like Norton, you simply weren’t ready to ascend to the Big Boy’s chair. Your work as Carr’s quarterbacks coach and role in his development was exceptional. There’s no question about that.

And because of that exceptional work, you got some buzz going about you, and you were being touted as some sort of offensive-minded wunderkind. That’s not your fault, you simply rode the wave. Hey, who among us wouldn’t have?

Given the chance to move up in the ranks and ascend to a loftier position, there is not a person among us who would have turned it down. And if any of you out there say you would have, you’re a dirty liar.

But, deep down, you have to know the truth. Even if you won’t admit it to yourself just yet, Todd – you weren’t anywhere near ready to take the Big Boy’s chair. It’s more than obvious to all of us out here with two eyes and half a brain, that you’re way out of your depth.

Not all that long ago, the Raiders brought in a guy who was supposedly a defensive-minded wunderkind. His name was Jason Tarver and the parallels between you and he are unmistakable.

Trust me when I say, the comparison isn’t flattering as Tarver fielded some of the worst, most atrocious defenses in franchise history. Well, at least until Norton arrived on the scene.

The point being, of course, is that like Tarver, it’s clear as day that you’re in over your head. And that’s okay. It’s not your fault, Todd. You just weren’t ready to be the guy running the show. While it’s understandable that you were promoted, given the reputation you’d crafted and Del Rio wanting to take this offense to the next level, it’s more than clear now, that your reputation is all smoke and mirrors.

And unfortunately, because we don’t have a viable alternative – unlike on the defensive side of the ball where John Pagano is sitting, inexplicably collecting dust – we’re going to be stuck with you for the duration of the year.

Over these last six games though, you have the opportunity to salvage something of your experience in the Big Boy’s chair, Todd. Realistically, with the team needing to win out to have a shot at the postseason, you’ve got nothing left to lose.

Cut loose, take the shackles off the offense and get back to basics. Get back to a more – and it pains me to write this – Musgrave-esque style of play. Do that, let this offense do what it did well last season, and the stretch run here could not only be exciting, but it could prove very interesting.

Or don’t. Continue to call your dink-and-dunk, play from behind style of game, and watch the rest of the season be thrown into the dumpster fire the first ten games have been.

It’s your choice, Todd.

In closing, I want to share an old joke that reminds me so much of you right now. And that’s the old joke about the “post turtle.”

"“An old rancher is talking about politics with a young man from the city. He compares a politician to a post turtle. The young man doesn’t understand and asks him what a post turtle is.The old man says, ‘When you’re driving down a country road and you see a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a post turtle. You know he didn’t get up there by himself. He doesn’t belong there; you wonder who put him there; he can’t get anything done while he’s up there; and you just want to help the poor, dumb thing down.’”"

Trust us when we say that we’d love to help you down off that post and send you on your way. But most of us are resigned to the fact you’ll be with us ’til season’s end.

Which means, you have six games left to prove you’re not the second coming of Jason Tarver – the JaMarcus Russell of Offensive Coordinators, if you will, Todd.

What you choose to do with those six games is up to you.

Sincerely,

Kevin Saito (and a whole lot of disgruntled Raiders fans)

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