FanPost

Of hot seats and scape goats....

Mike Mayock unlike many GMs seems honest and blunt. I frankly like his style vs. some of the crap we had to endure during the Reggie years when he would say a player didn't want to be here when he actually did according to said player. Today true to form he said he was on the hot seat. If they don't start winning some games it was back to the NFL Network for him. See the following for a synopsis:

Raiders beat: Mayock Hot Seat

My real question is who should be on the hot seat and what kind of performance would dictate a justified hot seat. I guess to me if the team continues to improve and has double digit wins with one of the hardest schedules in football with a new defense no hot seat is warranted. However, if this team is 8-9 or worse there really ought to be a hot seat for someone, but I am not sure its Mayock. Lets say the Raiders go 8-9. This would mean in 4 seasons Gruden was not able to have a single winning season. It would also mean that in year 4 he regressed.

Why would you fire Mayock and not Gruden or both in this case? It could be the huge contract he has. He would still have 60 million gtd. Many of the position coaches would likely still have gtd money as well.

At 10-7, I just can't justify saying to get rid of either Mayock or Gruden as there has been slow but steady improvement plus all the outstanding money that would be forfeited plus the Raiders would have to start over again. At 9-8 I am starting to say this seems a lot like the year before. At 8-9 or worse honestly they have to give this a hard look.

I am predicting 10 wins this season with a range of 8-12 wins depending on things like injuries and breaks etc. If they get the 10 wins I think this all becomes mute but if they lose more than 9-10 games I think Mayock is gone for sure if nothing more than a scape goat to spare Gruden. Its kind of too bad because I like Mayock and somehow I feel some of the really silly stuff was not his doing such as the Browns or the 3rd round joker and some of the defensive picks were likely heavily influenced by PG. I guess in some respects it represents a failure to be able to block madness but if Mayock is fired, do you think the next GM will fare much better?