In most organizations, the idea of the General Manager making the call on personnel decisions would kind of go without saying. It’s like ‘well, yeah, that’s his job.’ But that hasn’t been the case with the Raiders the last few years and it’s led to some disastrous personnel decisions.
That was with Jon Gruden as head coach and Mike Mayock as GM. Mayock seemed at times to be almost more of a consultant while Gruden overruled him. And if that wasn’t the case, there was never really any indication otherwise. The result was playing fast and loose with trades and taking big risks — Vontaze Burfict, Antonio Brown, Trent Brown — and seemingly always getting bitten by it.
It was hard to know who was really to blame. Overall it was just a confusing time that needed to end. And end it did as Gruden was forced to resign midway through last season and Mayock was let go this offseason.
