Oakland Tribune: Tedford would be foolish to take Raiders job

By Dave Newhouse, STAFF WRITER 

ANOTHER AL DAVIS coaching experiment has gone up in flames. Now it's time to find yet another disposable coach who can co-exist with the difficult Davis. Thus Jeff Tedford's name is being floated about as a potential savior. Stop dreaming, Raider Nation. Tedford, Cal's highly successful coach, would be a perfect fit for the Oakland Raiders, who've sunk to their deepest desperation in Davis' 43 years of guiding this no-longer feared franchise.  But Tedford is no fool. Davis has a better chance of hiring Joe Paterno than he does Tedford, who isn't enamored with pro football to begin with and could hardly function in Davis' insular world of rampant paranoia.  No coach who has worked under Davis has left happily. John Madden and Tom Flores speak well of Davis now, but both basically were shown the door. Madden had an ulcer, it's true, but he and Davis were at philosophical odds in Madden's final season and didn't speak to each other for a month.  Davis also ran off Jon Gruden, his only recent head-coaching hire — there have been seven since 1988 — who instilled a winning atmosphere. Davis hated Gruden's popularity, and a handful of Raiders front-office types followed Chuckie to Tampa Bay, including Davis' one-time mouthpiece, Bruce Allen.  Tedford wouldn't want to chance his becoming another of Davis' coaching casualties when he's perfectly content in Berkeley. Cal won eight games last season, the combined win total of the Bay Area pro teams. And Cal won 10 games a year ago, three more than the local NFL slugs combined.

Oh, Davis could pay Tedford considerably more than the $1 million-plus he's making at Cal. The reconstructed contract he signed after the 2004 season still has four years to run. And because he has the best football team locally along with De La Salle, there's no reason to leave.

Here are a handful of other reasons Tedford isn't going anywhere:

-Cal has been to three straight bowl games, while the Raiders and San Francisco 49ers failed to make the playoffs the past three years. So where's the better job?

-Tedford recruits his players. Davis largely decides who plays for the Raiders. Let's see, who would Tedford rather coach, Marshawn Lynch or Derrick Gibson? So where's the better job?

-Tedford doesn't have to answer to anyone for his football decisions. He would have to answer to Davis for all Raiders decisions. And Davis would question his play-calling, too. So where's the better job?

-Tedford is a quarterback guru. Marques Tuiasosopo was given one shot to prove his worth, then it was back to perfectly ordinary Kerry Collins. You know who made that decision. So where's the better job?

Sorry, Black Hole, the NFL isn't a paradise, and the Raiders' coaching job isn't a panacea. Rick Neuheisel would be a perfect fit, though, in Oakland. He likes the vertical game, his players like him, he just resurrected Kyle Boller in Baltimore, and he can't get into more trouble in the NFL.  Besides, Neuheisel is blond, which would remind Davis of Gruden.