Art Shell...

[Angry Pope]

Raiders coach not just a Shell of his former self



BY GENE SAPAKOFF


OAKLAND, Calif. - It's early, still the preseason. There haven't even been any Oakland Raiders fans with silver and black face paint arrested for beating up a stadium guest wearing an opponent's jersey.

But the Raiders are 4-0 in the preseason after Friday night's 21-3 victory over the Detroit Lions at McAfee Coliseum. Art Shell's second tour as an NFL head coach is off to a splendid start and getting rave reviews, making some people wonder why Charleston's most accomplished sports figure didn't get another head coaching job after Al Davis fired him with a winning record 12 years ago.

Or why Davis last off-season first offered the job to Louisville head coach Bobby Petrino before re-hiring Shell, a Hall of Fame left tackle who helped the Raiders win two Super Bowls as a player and one as an assistant coach.

"I thought that was the greatest move they could have made," former Raiders linebacker Jeff Barnes said. "They always should stay in-house, and Art should have never left. Art coming back is just what the Raiders needed to get the young guys on the same page. They've had a lot of different coaches with different philosophies, and now we have Art Shell with that Raider philosophy.

"If the kids just listen to what he's saying, they can get back in the hunt, back in the playoffs and back in the Super Bowl."

Focused approach

Shell, 59, had a cushy job at NFL headquarters but he longed for another head coaching gig since he left the Raiders with a 54-38 record compiled from 1989-1994. He was an offensive line coach for the Kansas City Chiefs and Atlanta Falcons before becoming an NFL senior vice president five years ago.

Wearing a suit and tie in Manhattan blended well with Shell's business-like approach. He was expressionless Friday night in the moments after star wide receiver Randy Moss scored on a 63-yard post-play reception from Aaron Brooks three plays into the game. He celebrated by glancing at his clipboard and talking into his Telex mouthpiece to an assistant coach upstairs.

"We took another step in the process of getting ready for the regular season," said Shell, who graduated from now defunct Bonds-Wilson High School in North Charleston. "We came into this game trying to get better. I felt we played hard throughout the football game. We played with a lot of intensity, and we played smart for the most part."

Even in the preseason, 4-0 is pretty sweet for a team that won a total of 13 regular season games over the last three seasons.

So far, so good

Barnes thinks a winning season is closer than most prognosticators believe.

"It's about time to turn this thing around and get the Raiders back on top," he said.

With the exception of disgruntled wide receiver Jerry Porter, Oakland players are saying the right things.

"The one thing (Shell) has helped us with more than anything is consistency day-in and day-out," defensive tackle Warren Sapp said after Friday night's game. "Whenever you get that from your head man, it's easier to go out and get your job done. He's leading us in the right direction and the best thing about it is we're following him."

The second-to-last preseason game always is the most meaningful, the practice game in which starters play the longest and borderline players get a last chance to impress before the first major cut.

It was 21-0 at halftime.

It gets real in two weeks, when the Raiders open the regular season with a Monday night home game against AFC West rival San Diego.

But so far, it looks like Davis re-hired the right guy.

 

[Angry Pope]

DAVIS STILL VOICES HIS STRONG OPINIONS
Raider back in charge

08/27/06

Thirteen years ago, during Art Shell's first tenure as head coach of the Raiders, Al Davis sat in the press box at Mile High Stadium in Denver and noticed that Anthony Smith, the team's best pass rusher, was out of the game.


Davis turned to an assistant and said, "Get down to the field and tell Art to get Smith back in the game." The man complied and Smith was back on the field shortly.

Ask anyone in the NFL what's been wrong with the Raiders and they're likely to reply "Al Davis," the man who has been the face of the team for 43 years, first as coach, then as owner. Davis still thinks he's the coach and, as he did that night in Denver, doesn't hesitate to make coaching decisions.

But for four decades, Davis is also what's been right with the Raiders. Not only has he been coach, general manager and owner rolled into one, but he also served as AFL commissioner, helped force the merger with the NFL and is in the Hall of Fame for his myriad contributions to football. If he is deemed what's wrong now, he is also why for the first 30 or so of the last 43 seasons Oakland/Los Angeles/Oakland had the best record of any NFL franchise.

But things have gone very wrong lately — a 13-35 record since a Super Bowl trip following a 2002 season that in retrospect seems like a fluke. When he rehired Shell in February, Davis, who turned 77 on July 4, made a rare acknowledgment that he might have erred when he fired him after the 1994 season.

"I have never forgiven myself and I have talked about it from time to time that I might have made a mistake," he said.

The record says bringing back Shell was a wise move — from 1989-94, he was 56-41. "Non-Raider" coaches since then were 95-106.

In fact, Jon Gruden (40-28) is the only Raiders coach with a winning record during that period. And he left for Tampa Bay after the 2001 season in large part because he and Davis couldn't coexist.

Davis remains deeply involved in coaching — he still watches tape of every practice.

Last season, with the Raiders going nowhere, then-coach Norv Turner made Marques Tuiasosopo the starting quarterback as an experiment. Tuiasosopo played poorly but Turner said he would give him another shot — until he talked to Davis.

Shell's return puts the team back in the hands of "a Raider" or, in Davis' accent, which mixes his native Brooklyn with the South, "a Raid-uh." One sign: Shell is running the old Raiders "vertical offense" and some of the same drills John Madden ran in the 1970s.

Don't discount the heritage.

A Raider — from Fred Biletnikoff and Jim Otto, to Madden, Willie Brown and Ken Stabler, to Matt Millen and Howie Long — is a lifetime label for someone who starred in Oakland — or in Los Angeles from 1982-94. It sticks forever, except for those, such as Marcus Allen, who get into Davis' doghouse and are banished.

"Non-Raider" coaches — Gruden is exhibit A — have bristled at the atmosphere that requires employees to bleed silver and black and, from time to time, take coaching advice from Davis. Mike Shanahan, who became head coach in 1988, tried in his first season to fire a group of career Raiders on the coaching staff, including Shell, who was the offensive line coach.

Davis stepped in and overruled him. And four games into the 1989 season, Shanahan was gone after an 8-12 record, replaced by Shell, who became the first black coach in modern NFL history. (Davis is a social trailblazer — Amy Trask, the team's current CEO, is the only woman ever to run an NFL franchise.)

So while the Raiders still call themselves "the team of the decades," the relevant years are really from 1963-87, when they were 267-121 and won three Super Bowls, often with offbeat characters such as Ken Stabler or castoffs deemed troublemakers by other teams.

The coaches during that era were all Raiders — Davis (from 1963-65), John Rauch, Madden and Tom Flores. Then came Shananan, a non-Raider, then Shell. Since then? All non-Raiders.

Shell has emphasized that Raider image in his return.

There's a common belief that any Oakland coach is taking orders from Davis.

That perception contributed to keeping Madden out of the Hall of Fame for more than 30 years despite the best regular-season winning percentage in NFL history — he was finally elected last February. Flores, who coached two Super Bowl winners, has never gotten a nibble for the Hall and the Davis factor may have hurt Shell in his quest for another job.

At least a Raider is back in charge. Looking at history, that can't hurt.

 

[Angry Pope]

Shell changes outlook thanks to trust, respect

Steve Corkran


You start with respect, work your way up to trust and then reap the dividends. It's as simple as that, Art Shell said.

The Raiders' first-year coach said he knew things had to change around here. A team that wins only four or five games three straight seasons has problems that run deeper than talent.

So it was that when Shell arrived in Oakland in February he set about breaking down the barriers put up by players, cutting through the layers of distrust and getting to a point where he could being the reconstruction process.

"You can't go into any endeavor without getting the trust of the people around you," said Shell, in his second stint as the Raiders coach. "I don't care where you work. If those people in that organization don't trust each other, then you're going to have a lot of friction, and you're going to be splintered. You must create that trust."

That might not be as easy as it sounds. Not when the players remember incidents such as the one where former coach Norv Turner promised backup quarterback Marques Tuiasosopo four starts at the end of last season and then reversed course after one game.

Certainly not in a culture where the star player, wide receiver Randy Moss, showed blatant disrespect to Turner by skipping the postgame speech after a game last season.

"When I first came here, the first time I spoke to them, I said, 'The first thing we have to do is, we have to learn to trust each other. Coaches trusting players and players trusting the coaches, and understanding we all have to go in the same direction to get things done the way we want to get it done,'" Shell said.

Part of Shell's master plan, he said, entailed not judging players based on things he heard, things he read, things he saw from afar or anything that happened before he arrived. Everyone received a clean slate.

"It starts with respect," Shell said. "You have to respect someone in order to gain respect. You've got to earn that. ... I'm the head coach, and they're the player(s), but still, there has to be a mutual respect and trust among us. And that's being done."

Quarterback Aaron Brooks calls Shell a quiet leader who tells his players what he expects of them, gives them the freedom to get it done and doesn't play favorites.

Perhaps most important, Brooks said, there isn't any guessing as to where Shell stands on a particular issue. There aren't any mind games.

"I'd rather have a coach who will confront me on the spot," Brooks said, "and that's what coach Shell does. He stops the practice and lets that individual and the whole offense and defense as a unit know what's the problem, where's the problem, what we have to do to correct it. I prefer to get called out on the spot as opposed to pulled aside."

Extra points

The Raiders are one victory away from their going undefeated in exhibition games for the first time in franchise history. It will take a victory against the defending NFC champion Seattle Seahawks, on the road, in perhaps the noisiest stadium, for the Raiders to accomplish that feat. ... The Raiders practice in Alameda today and Tuesday before heading to Seattle on Wednesday. The game is Thursday night at Qwest Field. ... Final roster cuts are Sunday. The Raiders then are free to sign players to their practice squad as soon as next Monday afternoon.