“The one thing I know, is what I don’t know. The one thing I did know was I needed to bring the right people in here.” — Mark Davis, upon introducing Reggie McKenzie as the Raiders’ general manager on Jan. 10, 2012.
HENDERSON, Nev. — It’s the classic chicken and the egg dilemma in the oft-upside down world of the NFL — what comes first, the general manager or the coach? And when it comes to the Las Vegas Raiders under the stewardship of Mark Davis, who took control of the franchise upon the passing of his father, Hall of Famer Al Davis on Oct. 8, 2011, the power structure has gone one of three ways.
After hiring McKenzie, Davis stepped out of the way and two weeks later McKenzie went outside of the box and picked Dennis Allen as the team’s first defensive-minded head coach since John Madden. Davis, you might say, regretted the hire almost immediately and Allen, after consecutive 4-12 seasons and an 0-4 start in 2014, was fired.
Interim coach Tony Sparano fell out of the conversation either by a) burying a football in the practice field to ward off bad juju or b) getting buried at the then-St. Louis Rams 52-0 or c) both. So it was Davis who took the reins on finding the next coach. Madden, who, along with Ron Wolf and Ken Herock, had advised the younger Davis on the hiring of McKenzie, was a sounding board for Davis when he hired Jack Del Rio as coach in 2015. McKenzie ran the roster, while Del Rio ran the game.
But when Jon Gruden, long a target of Davis, let it be known in late 2017 he was ready to rejoin the Raiders and help shepherd the move to Las Vegas, Del Rio was done. So too was McKenzie, who had not heard of Gruden rejoining the Raiders — Al Davis traded the coach to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers following the 2001 season — until seeing reports of the move the morning of the 2017 finale. Del Rio announced his own firing after the season-ending loss at the Los Angeles Chargers and McKenzie lasted 13 games with Gruden, who was given near total control of football operations.
