The Raiders have hired Mick Lombardi as their new offensive coordinator, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Lombardi, who spent the 2019 season as the Patriots’ assistant quarterbacks coach and the past two years as New England’s wide receivers coach, will join Josh McDaniels on the trek from Foxborough to Las Vegas.
McDaniels, the longtime Patriots OC who was hired as the Raiders’ new head coach at the end of January, is expected to serve as the team’s offensive play-caller. Still, this represents quite a promotion for Lombardi, the 33-year-old son of former NFL exec Michael Lombardi. As Schefter writes, the younger Lombardi handled the Pats’ red zone game plan in 2021, and he and McDaniels are aligned in their offensive philosophies.
Lombardi will replace Greg Olson, who worked as the Raiders’ OC from 2018-21 (we recently heard that Olson is expected to rejoin the Rams’ staff in some capacity in 2022). He will inherit a unit that finished 11th in the league in total offense last season and that features a quality starting QB in Derek Carr (assuming, of course, that Las Vegas elects to retain Carr, who is entering a contract year).
Schefter adds that Patriots offensive line coach Carmen Bricillo will join the Raiders in the same capacity. With the departures of McDaniels, Lombardi, Bricillo, and Bo Hardegree — who was recently hired as Las Vegas’ new QB coach — New England is experiencing quite a brain drain on the offensive side of the ball. That is to say nothing of the expected retirement of RB coach Ivan Fears, who has been in his post since 2002. Of course, the club did recently reunite with Joe Judge, who is returning as an offensive assistant.
In related news, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets that the Raiders are adding longtime NFL scout Andy Dengler to their college scouting department. Dengler had served as the Jaguars’ assistant director of player personnel from 2013-20. As part of the continuing transition under new GM Dave Ziegler, the Raiders are also parting ways with assistant director of player personnel Trey Scott, who had been with the team for a decade (Twitter link via Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network).
Aaron Wilson of Pro Football Network offers more details on Las Vegas’ front office overhaul.
The good ol boys network strikes again.
You can’t expect any movement on diversity until the legacy pipeline in hiring is eradicated.
The NFL is just as bad as a college or Hollywood with this legacy stuff. And legacy completely trashed the idea of meritocracy.
Eh… Yes and no, I’d say. I agree the NFL needs to be more open to looking at different HC candidates instead of continually pulling fruit from the same trees. As a HC, it makes some sense to hire guys you know when filling out your staff, though. It just makes creating a shared vision easier.
For instance, let’s say you’re a HC and you want to pass the ball 50x a game out of the shotgun. I interview for your OC job and I impress, but I want to run the football and grind the clock. Would you hire me?
It’s not like everyone has to be totally aligned with their boss’s ideas to execute them, and I kinda doubt McDaniels will hand over play calling duties.
And the nepotism point still stands. If guys with famous dads get hired more at entry level and get promoted faster every step of the way, there’s a lot less room for anyone else.
Say this like Football coaches, like players, aren’t complete hammerheads who do t only know one way of doing something. The entire game has always been this way and any real innovations have been frowned upon or called “cheating” by ass slapping nimrods.