Firing Dennis Allen Will Continue the Raiders' Cycle of Regret

Dennis Allen almost made history after the Raiders’ 38-14 loss to the Dolphins in London on Sunday. He almost became the first NFL coach to ever be thrown under a double-decker bus.     

Once the team got back stateside, a single-story bus had to do.

The Raiders informed Allen on Monday that he's out of a job, according to multiple reports, making him the scapegoat for an 0-4 start.

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#Raiders confirm that coach Dennis Allen was fired Monday night.

— Steve Corkran (@CorkOnTheNFL) September 30, 2014"

Rumors of Allen's impending firing had swirled since the beginning of the season, reaching a crescendo after the rout at Wembley Stadium, when Raiders players answered questions about their coach’s immediate future in the locker room, and when a later-retracted Associated Press report declared that Allen had already been sacked (as they say across the pond).

Offensive line coach Tony Sparano will be the team's interim coach, as first reported by ESPN's Jim Trotter.

Teams fire head coaches during the season to send a message. In firing Allen, the Raiders' message was loud and clear: They remain a terrible organization, doomed to make the mistakes of the past and revisit the sins of the father.

Ugly International Incident

The Raiders have looked terrible in most of their appearances this season, and Allen and his staff clearly deserved much of the blame. Allen’s defense not only tackled so poorly that Mike Wallace looked like Marshawn Lynch and pursued the football like they were enjoying a morning 5K run, but it also lined up completely wrong in many situations.

When the Dolphins bunched two receivers and a tight end along the sideline in a formation that screamed “SCREEN PASS,” Allen and defensive coordinator Jason Tarver responded with one cornerback on the line and one safety deep. This unique two-versus-three coverage resulted in a Wallace touchdown and an easy 16-yard Brandon Gibson catch-and-run. Allen was supposed to be a defensive coach, but the Raiders matched up against screen and option tactics like they had not watched any NFL game film from the last four seasons.

The offense, meanwhile, had scored four of its seven touchdowns in meaningless fourth quarters. The talent cupboard is bare, but Allen and offensive coordinator Greg Olson were doing some mysterious things with what little they had.

A steadfast refusal to throw downfield was troubling: Fellow rookie quarterbacks Blake Bortles and Teddy Bridgewater get to uncork occasional downfield passes, but Derek Carr was on a strict diet of short sideline passes. The Raiders averaged an anemic nine yards per completion, with lots of three-yard flat passes making the offense look much more efficient on the stat sheet than it has been in real life.

Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press

Unlikely suspects also were getting touches at the most unusual times. Backup fullback Jamize Olawale got his first NFL carry on 3rd-and-1 while the Raiders were still in the game against the Dolphins. He was stuffed. Doesn’t this team employ Marcel Reece for that sort of thing?

Players were not exactly lining up to support Allen after the Dolphins loss. Newcomers Maurice Jones-Drew and Carlos Rogers endorsed the current coach, but veteran leaders like Reece pleaded the fifth. “I have nothing to do with that,” he said about a potential coaching change (via the San Francisco Chronicle's Vic Tafur). “I put all of my trust in the owner and general manager to make those decisions.”

Many Raiders sounded resigned to Allen’s fate before they left Wembley on Sunday. And yet, this was the same team that took the Patriots to the wall two weeks ago. “When you don’t play physical, it has nothing to do with the coaches,” Rogers said. “What did the coaches do so spectacular last week, that we came out and played physical?”

Midseason coaching changes are often quick-fix measures, usually with a mix of ownership frustration and backroom intrigue mixed in. Those criteria certainly apply in Oakland right now. Unfortunately, history shows that midseason firings say more about the organization than the coach who gets the ax.

Cycle of Regret

Here’s a list of the coaches who have been fired or resigned, or who have left their teams for health reasons since 2000:

Team	Original Coach	Replacement
2000 Redskins	Norv Turner (7-6)	Terry Robiskie (1-2)
2000 Lions	Bobby Ross (5-4)	Gary Moeller (4-3)
2000 Cardinals	Vince Tobin (2-5)	Dave McGinnis (1-8)
2000 Bengals	Bruce Coslet (0-3)	Dick LeBeau (4-9)
2001 Vikings	Dennis Green (5-10)	Mike Tice (0-1)
2003 Falcons	Dan Reeves (3-10)	Wade Phillips (2-1)
2004 Dolphins	Dave Wannstedt (1-8)	Jim Bates (3-4)
2004 Browns	Butch Davis (3-8)	Terry Robiskie (1-4)
2005 Rams	Mike Martz (2-3)	Joe Vitt (4-7)
2005 Lions	Steve Mariucci (4-7)	Dick Jauron(1-4)
2007 Falcons	Bobby Petrino (3-10)	Emmitt Thomas (1-2)
2008 Rams	Scott Linehan (0-4)	Jim Haslett (2-10)
2008 Raiders	Lane Kiffin (1-3)	Tom Cable (4-8)
2008 49ers	Mike Nolan (2-5)	Mike Singletary (5-4)
2009 Bills	Dick Jauron (3-6)	Perry Fewell (3-4)
2010 Vikings	Brad Childress (3-7)	Leslie Frazier (3-3)
2010 Cowboys	Wade Phillips (1-7)	Jason Garrett (5-3)
2010 Broncos	Josh McDaniels (3-9)	Eric Studesville (1-3)
2010 49ers	Mike Singletary (5-10)	Jim Tomsula (1-0)
2011 Jaguars	Jack Del Rio (3-8)	Mel Tucker (2-3)
2011 Dolphins	Tony Sparano (4-9)	Todd Bowles (2-1)
2011 Chiefs	Todd Haley (5-8)	Romeo Crennel (2-1)
2013 Texans	Gary Kubiak (2-11)	Wade Phillips (0-3)
2014 Raiders	Dennis Allen (0-4)	Tony Sparano (?-?)

Only three of the 23 replacement coaches posted a winning record more significant than a 2-1 December push. None of the replacements ushered in a new era of glory for his franchise; the best the replacements managed were brief playoff bubbles by coaches like Leslie Frazier and Mike Tice in subsequent years. Jason Garrett is the star of the group with his perennial 8-8 finishes and “yes sir, Mr. Jones” job security.

Coaches have a habit of popping up on the midseason replacement list multiple times, a sign of a hire-and-fire regret cycle that better organizations avoid. Wade Phillips gets promoted late in one season, fired midway through another and then promoted to mop up yet another. Bruce Coslet was hired midseason by the Bengals in 1996 but resigned after an awful 0-3 start in 2000, accomplishing nothing in between. Mike Singletary arrived as a hero for the 49ers in the middle of one year and departed as a goat near the end of another. Sparano could not make it to the end of the 2011 season for the Dolphins.

The same franchises also appear again and again on the list: the Rams, Vikings and pre-Harbaugh 49ers. The Raiders are returning to the exact place they were six years ago: off to a miserable start under a young coach who is obviously at odds with an owner named Davis.

Lane Kiffin spent one year and four games chafing against Al Davis in 2008. A fed-up Davis fired Kiffin under a cloud of accusations and suspicions. Davis tapped offensive line coach Tom Cable to replace Kiffin during the 2008 bye week.

Christian Petersen/Getty Images

Cable led the Raiders to four wins and eight losses. The next summer, he was involved in an altercation behind closed doors with assistant coach Randy Hanson that was so severe that the police got involved. Hanson suffered a fractured jaw. Cable kept his job, but as allegations of domestic assault by multiple women arose, Davis was forced to take action. Davis fired Cable, though his quotes suggest that he was more concerned that Cable was taking paramours with him on road trips than with their allegations.

The midseason firing/resignation list is full of scandals and innuendo: Josh McDaniels’ endless Broncos power struggles, Tice’s "Love Boat" and ticket-scalping incidents, Bobby Petrino going out for cigarettes and never returning to the Falcons, hospitalized Mike Martz trying to call plays by telephone and feuding with Rams execs and so on.

Sometimes the scandals caused the change. Others occurred after the change. Usually, they were indicators of deeper organizational problems.

Sparano probably won't cause the kinds of problems Cable caused, but his stints with the Dolphins and Jets (as offensive coordinator) suggest that he probably won't do much good, either.

To break the cycle of midseason promotions and reclamations—as the 49ers did three years ago—a franchise must get off the carousel and institute sweeping changes, the ones that extend up to the executive level.

Few teams need that executive-level change as much as the Raiders.

A Commitment to Old Commitments

Ben Margot/Associated Press

Reggie McKenzie became the first modern general manager the Raiders ever employed in 2012, and he took over an impossible task. Al Davis made countless expensive mistakes in his waning years, and head coach Hue Jackson (who replaced Cable) compounded those mistakes in a series of trades during a misguided power play immediately after Davis’ death. The Raiders were a terrible team $30 million over the salary cap. McKenzie wisely and mercilessly cleaned house.

It took courage to cut veterans like Richard Seymour, Tommy Kelly and Carson Palmer outright; a wiseacre might point out that Palmer and Kelly are contributing to the 3-0 Arizona Cardinals right now, but neither veteran could help the Raiders at the salaries they were drawing. Repairing the team budget was just one of McKenzie’s tasks. He has proven completely overmatched at all of the others. He’s a demolition expert trying to repair a high rise.

McKenzie traded draft picks to acquire Matt Flynn and Matt Schaub, two journeyman quarterbacks who proved too rickety to even fill the basic role of start-of-season caretaker. McKenzie bungled an apparent signing of Rams lineman Rodger Saffold in the offseason (owner Mark Davis reportedly nixed the deal, according to Mike Silver), and left tackle Jared Veldheer departed for Arizona, reportedly disillusioned with the Raiders’ less-than-zealous effort to retain him.

Lamarr Houston bolted for Chicago; like Veldheer, he was the kind of young blue chip a good organization clears cap money to retain. Convincing free agents to sign with a perennial punching bag takes some salesmanship, but McKenzie had the tool to make the perfect pitch: cap space to burn. Yet the Raiders had a hard time finding good players willing to take their money.

Morry Gash/Associated Press

Ultimately, McKenzie splurged on past-their-prime veterans from fading franchises: Justin Tuck, LaMarr Woodley and Antonio Smith on defense; Schaub, Jones-Drew and Donald Penn on offense. If you are looking for disheartened players who have lost their winning edge, the 2013 Texans, Jaguars and Buccaneers are great places to find them.

Predictably, Jones-Drew has rushed 11 times for 12 yards, Schaub has not played a snap and the Tuck-Smith-Woodley trio has combined for one sack. This was a team built for mediocrity. The only way to win with the type of core McKenzie assembled would be to travel via time machine back to 2011.

Raleigh McKenzie, Reggie’s twin brother, is part of a college scouting staff which has so far produced Khalil Mack, Sio Moore and little else. D.J. Hayden, the No. 12 pick in the 2013 draft, was well known to be damaged goods before the draft and is currently on the physically unable to perform list. Menelik Watson, last year’s second-rounder, is a long-term project who cannot crack the lineup on a bad offensive line.

The Raiders have been shockingly thin at the skill positions for years, but the McKenzie brothers have not drafted a running back or receiver higher than the fifth round in three years at the helm. Carr’s career is off to a bruised, bumpy start, largely because the Raiders offer him no one to throw or hand off to.

Owner Mark Davis, meanwhile, has not fallen far from the family tree. He had rattled sabers about firing Allen before. He meddled in the Saffold signing. He has inherited his father’s wanderlust for new markets and his infatuation with hiring old Raiders like Reggie McKenzie to keep team operations tied to the good ol’ days.

The Raiders do not appear to be any different than they were five years ago, when Kiffin, Cable and Jackson played Game of Thrones; or 10 years ago, when modern football finally passed Al Davis by for good.

The Raiders overspend. They adhere to outdated strategies. The chain of command is a web of intrigue. There are whiffs of nepotism and old-boy networking. The owner is impatient, unpredictable and eager to see what the next coach or city has to offer.

It was a cycle that Allen, McKenzie and Mark Davis hoped to break. Instead, it appears to have broken them.

Mike Tanier covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.