Last season for Oakland Raiders head coach Tom Cable?
According to league sources, this will probably be the last season for Tom Cable to stay as the head coach of the Oakland Raiders.
However, the front office in Oakland has yet to decide whether or not they want to extend Cable’s contract, which expires on January 18.
The Raiders ended the season with a poor 8-8 record, even though they didn’t lose to any team in their division. It was their first perfect record in the AFC West in 35 years, but after a three game winning streak, Oakland lost four games out of six.
The Raiders are the first team since the establishment of the modern national football league in 1970 to have a perfect record in their division but still not make it to the playoffs.
"We are disappointed because we are not going to the playoffs, but at the same time we stuck to the goal and stuck to the plan as we have done very week, and we got our eighth win," Cable said after the Raiders beat the Chiefs in their final game of the
season, 31-10. "I'm very happy about that."
When asked if he was coming back, Cable did not answer the question, and instead beat around the bush.
"We're not losers anymore. We're 8 and 8," he said. "That's not what we wanted. We wanted to be a playoff team. We came here to get the sixth win, which means we went 6-0 in the division and most importantly, we are done with that losing. We are not losers
anymore."
The Raiders have won 17 games and lost 27 since Cable took over as head coach, but had their best record this season since 2002, when they went to the Super Bowl. Also more significantly, this season was the first time that they didn’t lose 11 games or more
since the Super Bowl run in 2002.
The main problem with the team has been Cable’s issue with the starting quarterback. He started the season with Jason Campbell as the starter. Later when Campbell was having some difficulties, Cable switched to Bruce Gradkowski. Later when Gradkowski separated
his shoulder, the job went back to Campbell, although Cable said that Gradkowski was still the starter. While Campbell had started during their three game winning streak, Cable switched back and forth again during the second part of the regular season until
Gradkowski injured his shoulder again and was put on season ending injured reserve.
It was reported in early December that Cable was distraught when Hue Jackson was fired from the offensive coordinators post. The report also said that Jackson’s colleagues are the ones pushing Cable to find another job.
When asked about the story a couple days later, Jackson said that there was no existing rift.
"I don't know where all that stuff comes from," Jackson said. "We all here have a pretty good working relationship. I have known Tom here longer than probably anybody that's on this staff, other than Mike Waufle because I worked with those guys before. I
was a little surprised by it. There's no truth to it."
Since 2003, Cable is the fifth head coach for the Raiders. He took over as interim head coach four games into the 2008 season and was made permanent in February of 2009.
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