Oakland Raiders: Heavy Is The Head That Wears The Crown, Cap’n Jack

The Oakland Raiders laid an egg against Kansas City Sunday, all but guaranteeing the team will miss the playoffs this year, and HC Jack Del Rio can’t escape the lion’s share of the blame.

In case you wondered, it was the Oakland Raiders, and not a busted sewage line, that is responsible for the foul stench emanating from Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday.

That horribly rancid aroma was courtesy of a terribly conceived offensive gameplan, even worse execution, and an overall flat, uninspired effort. And the Raiders laid that fat, stinky egg with first place in the division and a trip to the postseason on the line.

Bravo, Raiders. Well done.

This is no shortage of blame to go around — not just for this latest debacle, but for a season filled with them.

Derek Carr has performed poorly and nowhere near where his $125 million dollar contract (and past performances that earned him that big dollar deal in the first place) indicates he should. Especially in games where the lights have been brightest.

Amari Cooper has been dropping balls like somebody switched up his tube of Stickum with a tube of Vaseline.

The now (finally!) departed Ken Norton Jr., who ran a defense that couldn’t seem to stop a group of rampaging toddlers, let alone an NFL-caliber offense.

Reggie Nelson – just because. If you want a reason though, it’s because he’s old, slow, and can’t seem to catch a cold, let alone a ball or a receiver.

And, of course, plenty of blame should be heaped upon Todd Downing, who’s turned one of the league’s most dynamic and exciting offenses into a unit that makes the Cleveland Browns look like the Greatest Show on Turf.

Ultimately though, although the list of culprits is longer than the phone book, the lion’s share of the blame must fall upon the shoulders of HC Jack Del Rio.

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To cite an oft-paraphrased Shakespearian line, “Heavy is the head that wears the crown.” That crown is squarely on Del Rio’s. He’s the top of the food chain. The alpha dog. The big cheese. The buck stops with him. Use whatever euphemism you choose, but all of the decisions regarding the coaching staff and the active roster start and end with him.

And this season, his management of both has been so utterly horrible it defies not just description, but belief. His mismanagement of this team has led directly to its current 6-7 record, and more than likely, yet another non-playoff season.

A couple of weeks back, Del Rio did the right and smart thing, by firing Norton. Although, that firing came months too late. What did he expect to happen in 2017 that we didn’t see from Norton’s units in 2015 and 2016?

The defense never improved on iota on Norton’s watch and Del Rio should have let him go over this past offseason and brought in somebody with experience and a proven track record of success. Say, somebody like Wade Phillips – who was available and now has the Rams playing some pretty good defense down in LA.

With John Pagano now calling the shots on defense, we’re seeing some improvement – 12 sacks over the last three games, as opposed to the less than eye-popping total of 14 through the first 10 games of the year.

Next: Radical Solution To Oakland's Kansas City Problem

Unfortunately, Pagano has had to install his defense on the fly and the team doesn’t have the benefit of getting adjusted to it – like say, over an offseason program – so it’s still riddled with holes and is very much a work in progress.

But, at least we’re seeing progress, which is something we never saw under Norton.

The move from Norton to Pagano (or any other credible DC) should have been made before the offseason work even started. And that falls squarely on Jack Del Rio‘s head.

The offense has been a train wreck all season long and has gone from one of the league’s best to arguably, one of the league’s worst. At the very least, they’re one of the league’s most inconsistent, underachieving, and disappointing units.

Del Rio has to be given a little bit of a pass – emphasis on little bit. With former OC Bill Musgrave‘s contract expiring, Del Rio was caught between a rock and a hard place. For all of his work helping develop Carr into a franchise quarterback, Todd Downing was getting some buzz as an up-and-coming offensive coordinator. He was becoming something of a hot commodity.

It made sense at the time for Del Rio to part ways with Musgrave and install Downing as the OC. After all, Downing has a great relationship with Carr, knows the offensive system, and seemed primed to take Oakland’s offense to the next level.

Del Rio’s mistake was not in hiring Downing for the job, it was in letting him change who and what this offense is on a fundamental level. Del Rio’s mistake was in letting Todd Downing strip away the identity this offense had built – the one that made them great.

Power running and nasty, mauling offensive linemen, who not only blew open holes for the running backs, but kept Carr upright and out of trouble. Behind that big wall of nasty, the offense flourished. It became one of the most dynamic, electrifying units in the league.

And yet, now, with Downing’s imprint upon it, that electricity has fizzled out. Oakland’s offense doesn’t even seem to have enough power to light up a string of Christmas tree lights anymore.

Rather that insist Downing simply refine what was working and what made the Raiders offense great, Del Rio let him take that identity away. And the result is a 6-7 record, an offense that has gone straight into the toilet – ranking nineteenth overall, and twenty-first in scoring.

The writing was on the wall weeks ago. The job is too big for Downing at this point and he’s flailing around like a blindfolded man in a pitch-black room. It’s like he’s throwing darts at a chart on the wall, hoping to hit on something that works.

No, the truth of the matter is that Downing should have been either fired or demoted weeks ago. When it became obvious that he can’t take this offense to the next level as Del Rio, the team, the organization, and every fan in a Silver and Black jersey had hoped he could. Believed he could.

Yet, as of this writing, Del Rio is sticking to his guns and has obviously made his decision. Downing is still the one running the offense.

Related Story: Open Letter To OC Todd Downing

Once again, bravo, Raiders. Well done, Cap’n Jack.

Although not mathematically eliminated from the playoff chase, it seems to be a mere formality at this point. A lot of things are going to have to break Oakland’s way – and this team is going to have to find it’s identity once more – for that to happen.

Elimination from the postseason chase seems to be an inevitable end to an overwhelmingly disappointing season. It was a season filled with buzz, excitement, and high expectations – things it’s been years and years since the famed Raider Nation has genuinely felt.

Unfortunately, these Raiders haven’t come anywhere close to fulfilling the excitement and expectations most all of us carried.

And although the list of perpetrators is indeed lengthy, it’s the man at the top of the food chain, the alpha dog, the big cheese, the one on whose desk the buck stops, who is ultimately responsible for this massive failure of a season.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown. And from where most fans sit right now, it looks like Del Rio being crushed beneath the weight of it.