Tafur: Raiders’ lack of accountability falls on Jon Gruden and Mike Mayock
By Vic Tafur Jan 28, 2021
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Nelson Agholor stormed into the locker room and couldn’t hold it in anymore.
It was Week 16 and the Raiders had just blown a win over the Miami Dolphins in the final 19 seconds. The players staggered off the dead-quiet Allegiant Stadium field in shock, anger and shame. They had once been sitting pretty with a 6-3 record and now, as they started to take off their sweaty jerseys and pads, they were 7-8.
Agholor, in the words of teammates, was pissed. The receiver walked to the middle of the locker room before coach Jon Gruden addressed the team and started screaming at them.
This was Agholor’s first season with the Raiders, after a stint with the Eagles where he had starred in a Super Bowl win. And he wanted to make sure everyone realized what had just taken place. What he saw.
Agholor, according to those in the room, said his teammates were selfish and didn’t work hard enough, and that they had quit against the Dolphins as well as in the previous two losses. He said there was no accountability in the locker room, and on winning teams players play for one another and the coaches. The Raiders’ performance over the previous six games was unacceptable, and too many people within the team were just flat-out accepting it.
Agholor told his teammates that they sucked.
Then, according to witnesses, he was done and there was silence. Gruden didn’t respond, and neither did any of the players. (When contacted Thursday night about the speech, Gruden texted, “I love Agholor.”)
Agholor hasn’t talked to reporters in months and is set to test the free-agent market, but his speech definitely lingered. Linebacker Nicholas Morrow, the day after the 8-8 season finished, said, “we lacked the accountability. The players, coaches, we all have to be more accountable to our jobs because we’re all connected together.”
Gruden, that same day, was asked about Morrow’s comments.
“Yeah, we have a lot of young players that, they have to be available, not only on Sunday or gameday, but they have to be available on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,” he said. “Some of the details, they have to show up on tape. We have to be a much more detailed football team, especially in some areas on defense. It’ll be a critical area that we try to improve here.”
On Wednesday, general manager Mike Mayock echoed Morrow’s comments.
“The whole team needs to be accountable and self-aware,” Mayock told the team website. “And that starts with me. I have to do a better job. We drafted some guys last year that were position changes and maybe that wasn’t fair in a COVID-19 year.”
He mentioned moving Amik Robertson from outside corner to nickel, since-traded quarterback/receiver Lynn Bowden Jr. to running back and safety Tanner Muse to linebacker.
But forget those guys. To me, and I don’t want to beat a dead horse, the biggest reason the Raiders fell short of the playoffs is because they missed so badly in free agency. While Gruden and Mayock will say they don’t want to use COVID-19 and injuries as an excuse and then kind of do, the bigger problem was that the new players — besides Agholor — didn’t do much when they were on the field.
The Raiders gave $46 million in salary to defensive linemen Carl Nassib and Maliek Collins, linebackers Cory Littleton and Nick Kwiatkoski, backup quarterback Marcus Mariota and just-retired tight end Jason Witten. Not a difference-maker in the bunch.
“You can look at our track record and say we’ve made some bad decisions potentially,” Mayock told the team website. “We’ve also made some pretty good ones. … The entire building has to be accountable. Me, the coaching side and the players.”
Mayock, to his credit, didn’t drink the 8-8 Kool-Aid and called this past season “frustrating and disappointing.”
And while the Raiders did beat some good teams in the Chiefs, Saints and Browns, they also lost to some really bad ones. While their defense blew three wins, the Raiders were also gifted wins thanks to the late-game incompetence of the Jets and Broncos.
The highly touted 2019 rookie class took a step backward, and the 2020 class never really got off the ground. Receiver Henry Ruggs III made a handful of big plays, and that was enough to be the best of the Raiders’ bunch.
“I was disappointed in the productivity of our rookies, I will be the first one to admit that,” Mayock said. “You can make excuses … Henry Ruggs, I think, is who he is — I’m not disappointed in Henry. Henry’s got to get better. We knew how fast he is, but he’s got to get stronger and he has to get in and out of his breaks better. You’ve gotta feel him coming out of his breaks more for him to get to the next level. And I think he will.”
While a seemingly annoyed Ruggs tweeted out the first phrase of that quote on Thursday, it’s Mayock’s other quote on Ruggs that bugged me more.
Mayock also
talked to our Tashan Reed and the Las Vegas Review-Journal at the Senior Bowl this week, and here is what else he had to say on Ruggs:
“I thought Henry was exactly what I thought he’d be,” Mayock told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “He did make a difference for our offense. He did flash. He still has a long way to go. And we knew that when we drafted him.”
Mayock also went deeper on the weight-room work.
“He’s got to be able to get off press and run through getting re-directed,” Mayock said. “He’s got to be more physical at the point of the ball.”
All true, but back up a bit. The fact that the Raiders made Ruggs the first receiver picked in a very deep draft, at No. 12 overall, and expected 26 catches for 452 yards is alarming. Not only did they take him over the more polished Jerry Jeudy, CeeDee Lamb and Justin Jefferson, but they added the fastest player in the draft and didn’t seem to know how to use him.
Now, let’s get to the Raiders’ other first-round pick, cornerback Damon Arnette. He played in seven full games, left two others early with concussions and contracted COVID-19 during the team’s bye week.
“In training camp, prior to his injury, he was playing really well and we were excited about Damon Arnette,” Mayock told the team website. “He was instinctive, tough and fast. But concussions … a broken hand … COVID … OK. … He’s gotta take care of business in the offseason — nutrition, strength coach, the consistency of a day-to-day program.”
Mayock went on to tell the Review-Journal that Arnette “needs to apply himself religiously. … Because when things come easy to you, you don’t always work on the other things.”
If it’s not bad enough that the Raiders felt a need to light a fire under their two first-round picks from 2020, Mayock also touched on safety Johnathan Abram, a first-rounder in 2019.
“John gets out of control sometimes,” Mayock told the team website. “John has got to play under control, accentuate the positive and take away the negative. … (Arnette and Abram) need to step up this year. … We have to get way, way better on defense.”
Gruden fired his friend, Paul Guenther, as defensive coordinator and hired another, Gus Bradley, to take his place. Bradley, who worked for Gruden in Tampa Bay, has his work cut out for him, as do Gruden and Mayock, who in my opinion need to add two players through free agency and the draft who become the best two players on this defense. And one has to be a pass rusher.
“Last year, we did not have a dynamic (defensive) playmaker on any level,” Mayock told the team website. “And that’s hard, when you go into a game every Sunday and teams don’t have to specifically game-plan for any one player.”
That has to change, obviously, if the Raiders are going to make the playoffs next season. Which they kind of have to if fans are going to have any faith in this process.
Offensively, quarterback Derek Carr and Pro Bowlers Darren Waller and Josh Jacobs have improved under Gruden and offensive coordinator Greg Olson, and there’s no reason that shouldn’t continue. If the Raiders are unable to re-sign Agholor (I’m skeptical) they will have to bring in another veteran receiver.
The Raiders were 10th in the NFL with 27.1 points per game and that’s without getting much from their highest-paid player (right tackle Trent Brown) or their rookie class. Red-zone weapon Foster Moreau will be back in the mix now that Witten is gone after making $4 million for averaging 5.3 yards on his 13 catches while providing quality storytelling. (I like Witten a lot but that signing never made any sense.)
So, there are some reasons for optimism. But there is also a lot of pressure building on Mayock because he doesn’t have the 10-year contract or final say that Gruden does.
And Mayock is fine with that. He knows 8-8 is not good enough. Not in Gruden’s third season. Not in the new Las Vegas market. Not when teams like the Browns and Dolphins have quickly rebuilt and passed the Raiders by.
Not when players are questioning the accountability throughout the Raiders’ brand-new facility.
(Photo: Ethan Miller / Getty Images)
