So, Hue Jackson is outski. I guess we should have seen that coming. The Raiders head coaching job is good for a little over a year. It’s a way to conveniently spend some time on the west coast, not a place to make a career.

The Raiders didn’t have a horrible season. They went 8-8 and were a game out of the playoffs. However, they lost 4 of their last five and just couldn’t get their sloppy act together. This was a team that I was sure would make the playoffs during week 5. But then Campbell got hurt and they traded way too much for Palmer.

What got Hue Jackson fired? Going .500 isn’t so bad for your first year as head coach. But guess who the last 8-8 and coach was. Tom Cable, fired after his last .500 season too. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that 2011 Raiders were the the most penalized team in NFL history.  Per Joe Posnanski the Raiders laundry list of penalties looked like this:

• 29 offensive holding penalties
• 26 defensive offsides or neutral zone infractions
• 23 personal fouls of various kinds
• 21 false starts of various kinds, including one on a free kick
• 12 defensive holds
• 12 pass interferences
• 10 delay of game penalties
• 7 illegal contacts
• 4 facemasks
• 3 illegal blocks of various kinds
• 3 illegal formations of various kinds
• 2 ineligible passes
• 2 special teams out of bounds penalties
• 2 12 men on the field penalties
• 1 intentional grounding
• 1 offensive pass interference
• 1 illegal use of hands
• 1 illegal substitution
• 1 running into the kicker
• 1 roughing the kicker
• 1 clipping
• And a partridge in a pear tree

This all adds up to 1,358 penalty yards. That’s more yards than LeSean McCoy had running the ball. Yikes.

In the end it’s probably just that the new GM wants his own guy. Tough luck for Hue Jackson, I hope he gets another shot elsewhere.

@nhall