Dennis Allen gets another chance and needs to take advantage of it

Finally! Closure for the 2013 season is here at last and there is no more need to debate about who the coach may or may not be for the 2014 season. We now know that Dennis Allen got the official nod from Mark Davis last night so we can legitimately move forward with certainty at the head coach position.

Mark made the anticlimactic announcement last night, and did so while stating that there never was a question about Dennis returning for the 2014 season. That is all fine and dandy that Mark was never questioning it, but then he handled the situation very poorly and brought the media scrutiny onto himself. If there really was never a question then he should have clarified right after the season was over that Dennis was indeed safe for the next year.

What's done is done though and now we know that Dennis Allen is going to still be the coach of the Oakland Raiders. He has been coaching with a loaded deck and finally has the chance to play on a level playing field so it will be interesting to see how he does with no more excuses.

Today's NFL is not forgiving and is a win now league more so than ever before. Second chances for success rarely come around so Dennis should count himself lucky to be granted this opportunity. Hopefully the move pays off and Allen shows that he is capable of being a solid and successful head coach in the National Football League.

Most of Dennis Allen's critics point to his record of 8-24 over two seasons as proof that he is not capable of success as a head coach, but really it just proves that he wasn't capable of it in the first two seasons. Every year things change in the NFL and he now has a great opportunity to turn his record around with a solid 2014 season.

Yes his record is undeniably terrible, but now the built in excuses for it are over. It is put up or shut up time for Dennis, and he understands that better than anybody. He came into this situation knowing that he was stuck with very limited resources for his personnel and set up his plans expecting to be here for the incoming galore of cap space. Now he gets to show the Raider Nation that his plan for this money is a good one.

Reggie McKenzie and Dennis Allen will be responsible for building the team properly now that the "deconstruction" is over with. They have no room for error and need to be spot on with their decision making going forward. The fate of the Raiders franchise lies in their hands despite not all fans being happy about retaining Allen.

The two of them need to prove now that their hands will deliver this franchise to salvation, because the fans are far too restless for another year in this current state of damnation. Plenty of fan-bases would be restless with an 8-24 coach at the helm, but having not had a winning season since 2002 puts that frustration onto an entirely different level.

With the new level of frustration comes a complete lack of patience, and that has shown time and time again in recent years. The Raiders franchise is showing that they are trying to have the patience that much of the fan base lacks and now we have to wait and see if it pays off. At the very least nobody can say that this team did not give Dennis a good enough shot now.