Bobby Petrino should be the next head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. Yes, that Bobby Petrino. I know what you’re thinking, and it’s exactly what I was thinking when this wretched idea popped into my head, “Why in the hell would any football team that takes themselves seriously want Bobby Petrino?” This was a question that was quickly answered when I remembered that the team I’m talking about does NOT take themselves seriously.
This statement is something that will make Raiders fans mad, and for good reason! “Who in the hell does this kid think he is, 19 talking like he knows everything,” and they’re right to think that. I don’t know very much, and in the grand scheme of things I know even less, so it should be all the more damning when I say that one thing I do know is that the Raiders couldn’t make a good head coaching hire if you gift wrapped Bill Walsh and placed him on Mark Davis’s front porch. The last 15 years of Al Davis’s ownership and the first decade of Mark’s have been a masterclass in what not to do when making personnel decisions.
Since the firing of Art Shell in 1994 can you guess how many above-.500 coaches the Raiders have had? Three. THREE. These coaches are named Jon Gruden, Jack Del Rio, and Rich Bisaccia. Their records as raiders head coach are the following: Jack Del Rio- 25–23; Jon Gruden- 60–57¹; and Rich Bisaccia- 7–5. Notice the trend here? Not a single one of these coaches is more than 5 games over .500. This is what Vegas’s finest look like.
So why Bobby Petrino? Why not stick with Rich Bisaccia, one of the three Raiders coaches to be over .500 for their career since Art Shell’s firing? Why not go out and get a guy like Demeco Ryans, a well-respected assistant who is bound to eventually be an NFL head coach? Well folks, that simply isn’t a Raiders hire, but you know who is? Bobby Petrino. Think about it like this: What normally-functioning NFL franchise just hands out $100 million contracts to guys who have been in the booth for nearly a decade? Mark and Al Davis are cruel mistresses (sorry for that mental image)- ones who use the siren call of Tom Flores and John Madden to lure wayward fans in, only to turn around and spring Lane Kiffin and Tom Cable on these poor souls, damned to be Raiders fans.
Why do the Raiders do anything? I for one think that “because it would be pretty funny” is Mark Davis’s personal philosophy, and as an extension the philosophy of the Raiders. “What if we took Clelin fourth overall?” “What if we leaned into the joke that if a guy runs a sub-4.3 second 40 we’ll take him in the first round?” “What if we were the first team to sign Nathan Peterman, a guy who threw more interceptions in one 2017 game than Aaron Rodgers threw in the entire 2021 regular season?” The answer to all those questions is because it would be pretty funny. Thats all there is to it. So why would you hire Bobby Petrino, a man who finished his NFL head coaching career with a .230 winning percentage, and is the only man on record to make a neck brace look hilarious? Because. It. Would. Be. Funny. What’s funnier than hiring a regular, run of the mill bad football coach? Hiring Bobby Petrino. He wouldn’t just be bad, he would be Bobby Petrino bad. Do you think Bobby Petrino could handle Las Vegas? I don’t. Bobby Petrino couldn’t handle Fayetteville without going down in flames, imagine him living in the city of sin.
This last portion is for Mark Davis and Mark Davis only. Listen Mark, I know it’s hard to find good coaches. I know that the Sean McVays and Mike Vrabels of the world are hard to find, but you know what isn’t hard to find? Bad coaches. You should know Mark, you’re 0/4 on hiring head coaches. So what’s one more?
1: Combined record of both his 1998–2001 and 2018–2021 tenures.