Oakland Raiders bring in Jason Tarver as new defensive coordinator – NFL News Update
The Oakland Raiders have hired the defensive assistant of Stanford, Jason Tarver as their new defensive coordinator. The move was announced by the team on Monday.
Raiders have gone through many changes since the new general manager, Reggie McKenzie took over.
McKenzie had coach, Hue Jackson fired on the very first day he took over the charge, saying he wanted to bring his own man in.
McKenzie was aiming to make the Raiders a winning organisation and looked to bring the best available coaches.
McKenzie had earlier dwelt into a long search for the head coach which included many candidates, including four Green Bay Packers’ officials.
That search had resulted in Dennis Allen being hired as the new head coach. McKenzie had given Allen the power to hire his own staff.
However the move to hire Jason Tarver as the new defensive coordinator did not involve exploring many options.
The former defensive coordinator, Chuck Bresnahan was who had taken in a lot of heat for the weak defence of the Raiders that has been at its lowest this season was not retained for another season.
Bresnahan's status with the Raiders looked bleak ever since McKenzie started making changes in the team.
Tarver as the new defensive coordinator faces a big task ahead of him. The Raiders defence was the single biggest reason why they were eliminated from the playoffs this season.
The defence has been allowing an average of 5.1 yards per carry. They also allowed 31 touchdown passes this season, thereby becoming one of the four teams in the league to do so.
The Raiders have also broken the record for most number of penalties in the National Football League (NFL) this season by forfeiting 163 penalties for 1,358 yards. That record was earlier on held by the Kansas City Chiefs since
1998.
Tarver has worked as an assistant to the San Francisco 49ers for almost ten seasons and coached the outside linebackers from 2005 to 2006. He then left the NFL to join the Stanford at the college level.
The Raiders have made many changes that include the hiring of Greg Knapp as the new offensive coordinator in place of Al Saunders and Steve Hoffman as the new special teams coordinator.
The new head coach, Allen had recently said that he intends to plan an aggressive form of offense and defence that would be
“explosive” in the passing game.
The Raiders finished at 8-8 this season being unable to make it to the playoffs under coach Hue Jackson.
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