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I read this from Don Banks in SI today and thought it was well-put together. Hue is over his head and needs someone bigger over him. Run the offense, get a better DC and let the GM run the show.

??? So much for Hue Jackson's oft-stated confidence that everything was going to work out in the end for his Raiders, in this year marked by the death of long-time team owner Al Davis.

Not only couldn't the Raiders win a woefully weak AFC West this season, but also Jackson mortgaged the team's draft future with the one-sided Carson Palmer trade (the Bengals make the playoffs as an AFC wild-card, while Oakland misses the postseason). Moreover, Oakland still finished just 8-8, the same record that Tom Cable got fired for in 2010.

The Raiders have no one to blame but themselves for not being back in the playoffs for the first time since their Super Bowl season of 2002. Oakland lost four of its last five games to waste a 7-4 start, and the parade of penalties committed by the self-destructing Raiders grew more comical every week. Palmer had another killer interception in the fourth quarter against the Chargers, his 16th pick in the 9 1/2 games he played this year in Oakland.

It was all there for the taking for the Raiders, but they wound up losing out on the third tiebreaker with Denver, their record against common opponents. The loss has to be galling for Jackson, who talked of Raiders karma this season and believed that Davis was helping divine his team's playoff fate. Maybe not.

If anything, the late-season meltdown will serve to limit Jackson's authority within the organization as Oakland goes on a search for a general manager to hire and brings a more traditional NFL structure to its front office. In the power vacuum that existed just after Davis' death, Jackson boldly inserted himself and made the deal for Palmer. Now that it didn't pay off, in spectacular fashion, the blame will rest quite rightfully and squarely on Jackson's shoulders. In Oakland, "Just Win, Baby'' rings hollow for yet another year.



Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/don_banks/01/ 01/week.17/index.html#ixzz1iLjzkunF