4 Big Raiders Takeaways From NFL Owners Meetings

After the owners’ meetings, the following four facts about this franchise cannot be overlooked.

None of them is a guarantee of future success, but together, they are the ingredients of success, and for a famished fan base, that is and of itself inspiring.

Four Facts We Know Now

1. Discipline: On the Same Page

Many would speculate that this is a given on any franchise, but that is why conventional wisdom is not always right.

In the past, including last year’s debacle of a season, you could see that there were differing opinions and thoughts.  Continuity was clustered more in clans than in an organization on the same page.

I remember thinking to myself, “That doesn’t sound like a Pete Carroll offensive philosophy,” or, “That isn’t a Patrick Graham thought process.”

Now the words being spoken from the top to the bottom are of the same mind.

Klint Kubiak’s words themselves showed the organization's discipline when discussing the thinking process behind selecting the number one overall pick in this year’s draft.

"Just with the pick itself, it's just a daily conversation with John [Spytek] and our scouts. We have draft meetings coming up when we get back here, but we're really spending a lot of time by ourselves watching tape, then we come together later in the day and talk about what we see and starting to put our board together. So, it's just an ongoing process all the way up to draft day."

2. Direction: Heading To the Same Place, Together

Even during last year, and certainly many years previously, even when the team showed discipline, it was clear they didn’t see the same direction.

If we were to get in a car and head from Las Vegas to Dallas, there are many ways to make the trip.  It has often been evident, over the years covering this team and even before from the outside, that this franchise was not headed down the same path.

Last season, this team was in a “Win now” mindset, but from top to bottom, people had different maps and GPS directions, often leaving the franchise resembling a clown car of head-scratching, divergent directions, and instability.

Three months into this rebuild, that is not the vision.

Last season, multiple people inside the facility bemoaned Tom Brady’s absence from the building while allegedly trying to influence.

Now it is coveted and wanted.  Kubiak didn’t hide or run from it, off or on the record.

"I mean, in all aspects of my job, I'm reaching out to him and asking for his advice, and he's given advice, and what I've asked him is to give the advice that I really don't want to hear. It's okay to hurt my feelings. I'd rather it be that way. So, obviously, I have all the confidence in the world that we're going to keep building that relationship. So, it's been a good start. It's just, it takes time. That's relationships. They take time, and we've been putting in the time."

3. Drive: Everyone, All In

Some people collect paychecks, some guys are simply there for the prestige, but the great ones are driven.

Rob Leonard, the new defensive coordinator, is so similar to Kling Kubiak that it is eerie.  Both men, highly esteemed as position coaches, never looked beyond their current positions.  Both men gave it their best every day.

For Kubiak, that led him from a position coach to the best offensive coordinator in football to the number-one option among first-time coaches.

Rob Leonard has goals, but he never sacrificed today in order to protect the future.  That saw him rise to the best defensive line coach in the National Football League and the best first-time defensive coordinator candidate.

That drive now permeates the entire building.  It is now slowly becoming part of the DNA; the Raiders are driven.

Kubiak said as much when praising his players, who technically don’t even have to be in the building right now.

“There's about 25 guys that are there working out with A.J. [Neibel] four days a week, five days a week right now. So, there's already a culture of hard-working guys in our building. He's an example of one of them."

4. Devotion=The Team, The Team, The Team

Being a Spartan, this is difficult to type, but the great, and he was great, Bo Schembechler drilled this into his players for decades.  It is a fact that no Wolverine, or non-Wolverine, can argue with.

You can have discipline and drive, and you can even share direction, but without devotion to the same goal, things can go sideways quickly.

Pete Carroll, Rich Bisaccia, Josh McDaniels, Antonio Pierce, Jon Gruden, Mike Mayock, Champ Kelly, Dave Ziegler, Tom Telesco, and John Spytek are all good men.

All of them, in their own way, devoted men.  They didn’t work out collectively because this is about devotion to the organization.

Say what you want about Al Davis and the Raiders of old, but growing up 2,343 miles from Oakland, I can tell you that during their glory years, no one ever wondered whether those teams were devoted to the Silver and Black or what this team stood for.

Unfortunately, this franchise had lost that.

It has only been three months, and time tries trust, but all signs point to the fact that this team is devoted.

When Kubiak spoke, you could almost hear him channel the words, thoughts, and ideals of Al Davis.

“Why else come to Vegas to be a part of this organization, to make it a consistent winner. That's what we're all striving for, but the process of putting an organization in that position, that's why you come that's the great challenge that it's going to be. Now, when we say that, to me, yeah we're embracing getting there, but we want to be aggressive in how we approach every game. We want to go win every game we play."

Reality

The NFL is a difficult place to win.  It takes many things, some you can control, like the aforementioned reasons for optimism, and some you can’t control.

Statistically, the odds are squarely against the Raiders.

But in a city known for gamblers and winning big, I wouldn’t bet against them.

It has only been three months.  This isn’t going to be easy.

Are the Raiders better today than they were when the season ended?  Absolutely, but they were terrible last season, and they have a long way to go.

A way that this group has done everything to mitigate risk to ensure their success.

None of us knows how this will end, but it is very clear from the owners’ meetings that they are devoted, driven, disciplined, and headed in the same direction.

It’s been a long time since you could say that.