Today during Media Day, the Baltimore Ravens’ backup corner Chris Johnson, described the state of the Oakland Raiders during his tenure with the team. He mentioned the Raiders organization and coach Hue Jackson were extremely supportive of him while he was a Raider. If you’ll remember, Johnson’s sister was killed and his mother wounded in an alleged domestic dispute.
Johnson, a reserve cornerback for the Baltimore Ravens, said Jackson, along with defensive backs coaches Rod Woodson and Kevin Ross as well as Raiders legend Willie Brown, checked on him constantly. Johnson also feels indebted to late owner Al Davis, who made him a starting cornerback at age 29 and paid him accordingly. “I’m very thankful for what Mr. Davis did for me,” Johnson said. “I love that organization, the organization was good to me and my family.
Johnson went to bat for Hue Jackson, saying:
Hu(e) was the best coach I had since I was out there. I mean, we went 8-8, we was a good, solid team, you could see the identity of the team. I don’t know what was said, he wasn’t for the team or whatever, that was a straight lie. Hue had the best interests for the team and there were some of the guys in that locker room _ some of the key guys in that locker room _ that weren’t leaders. Here, on this team, Ray (Lewis) controls that locker room.”
Oh, oh…
“I’d put it like this, if you put Ray Lewis in the Oakland locker room, probably a good 20 people wouldn’t be on that team, because (o)f the way Ray runs his ship, and manning up the guys. In Oakland the guys weren’t like that I mean, I’m not going to call no names, but the high guys you’re supposed to put the position on, they weren’t leaders, you talk a good game but they weren’t playing a good game. Ray does that. That was more of the thing that was wrong with Oakland, they were getting guys that didn’t love the game.”
Fact. Oakland has a bunch of guys who collect paychecks. I hear rumblings about the Raiders owner, Mr. Mark Davis not being satisfied with the team’s direction. It’s going to take more than one season for their general manager to excise all the dead weight on that team. There were no leaders on defense for the team. That team was 8-8 but it was a combination of soft schedule and decent coaching that got the team to even that record.
Memo to Mr. Mark Davis: The one consistency with Oakland was Mr. Al Davis, and the results were complete disaster over his last ten seasons of managing the team.
There is no Bob Griffin in the Raiders future. There’s only Carson Palmer and he’s making nearly $16M a season. Carson Palmer does not make your team better.
Oakland needs football players.
