Former Oakland Raiders’ coach regrets coming hard on the team – NFL News Update
Oakland Raiders' former coach, Hue Jackson has admitted that hitting out hard on the players after the loss to San Diego Chargers was a mistake, adding that he would pretty much have remained the Head Coach, had Al Davis been alive.
Jackson, while talking to ESPN Radio, regretted having blasted his team after the loss to San Diego Chargers and said that the move to hit out on his players at a post game press conference in week 17 went beyond the line.
Jackson commented:
"I think probably the emotions were still pretty raw after talking to the team. I kind of went in there and said some things that I was saying to the team that maybe didn't need to be said outside the locker room”.
Jackson said that he learnt an important lesson from this episode:
"So lesson learned by me. I know what I said, I know what I meant. I don't think I meant it the way that everybody took it."
The heat fell on Jackson after the team failed to reach the playoffs, ending up 8-8 at the end of the season.
Even though Jackson faced a long list of injuries to key players that saw Raiders' performance drastically fall, the new general manager, Reggie McKenzie singled him out by sacking him as soon as he took over the charge of the
team.
Raiders had lost their key running back, Darren McFadden, and quarterback, Jason Campbell, along with many other important players to injuries and there was little that Jackson could have done in this regard.
The defence fared poorly throughout the season and the team committed a record number of penalties this season.
However, instead of the blame falling on defensive coordinator, Chuck Bresnahan, McKenzie had Jackson sacked.
An angry Jackson left the team, saying that McKenzie wanted his own man in and that was the reason why he was fired.
Recently, after Davis died, it had been Jackson who had been offering his role to dispense the responsibilities in the absence of a general manager, so the decision to fire him came out as a surprising change in a power twist.
Earlier, while talking to the NFL network, he denied having been power hungry and said that people who talked of him aspiring to be the GM were wrong.
Jackson pointed the blame on Raiders' owner, Mark Davis, saying he was behind his ouster and that, had his father been alive, he would have still been the head coach.
Mark Davis had taken over as the team’s owner after his father died in October.
Nonetheless, Jackson hopes for Raiders' success in future, adding that the new general manager will prove to be good.
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