Meet the Raiders’ new head coach – Dennis Allen

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Allen shows Raiders’ new commitment to defense

The Raiders have hired Dennis Allen, the 39-year-old defensive coordinator of the Denver Broncos, to be their new head coach.

Allen informed the Broncos on Tuesday night in Mobile, Ala., a league source said. Fox Sports was the first to report the Raiders and Allen had reached an agreement.

New Oakland general manager Reggie McKenzie met with Allen after Senior Bowl practice to work out a deal. The other candidates were told last night and this morning that they were no longer in the running.

The last time the Raiders hired a head coach with a defensive background was 1969, when Al Davis selected young linebackers coach John Madden. Madden, coincidentally, sat in on new owner Mark Davis’ interview with McKenzie earlier this month.

Allen, 39, was with Denver for one year and ran a 4-3 base defense – which the Raiders have used the past seven seasons. The 8-8 Broncos went from 32nd – last – in the NFL in yards allowed (390.8) in 2010 to 20th (357.8) in 2011, and from 32nd in points allowed (29.4) to 24th (24.4).

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Back in the Raiders’ glory years they were always dominating on defense. If their defense had been only average last year they would have easily made the playoffs. Tebowmania would not have been possible without Denver’s crushing defense.

But coaches don’t play the game, and the Raiders don’t have many personnel options because they traded away their draft picks. Can a new coach teach the old dogs new tricks?

We’ll see.

BTW – GM Reggie McKenzie played linebacker for the Raiders.

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Sorry State of the Union

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I’m not gonna watch it. It’ll just be a campaign speech and another pathetic attempt to blame the Republicans for everything that’s wrong with this country. Besides, Obama is barely tolerable when I’m drunk, and I’ll be sober tonight.

If I can only get drunk once a week I’m not wasting it on Obama.

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Tell us something we don’t know

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Barack Obama attacked Hillary Clinton in negative campaign leaked memos show

“Change We Can Believe In”, a key Obama campaign slogan, was meant as a slur against Mrs Clinton’s personality, intended to highlight how she “couldn’t be trusted or believed in when it comes to change”, according to a memo seen by America’s New Yorker magazine.

“She’s driven by political calculation not conviction, regularly backing away and shifting positions … She embodies trench warfare vs Republicans, and is consumed with beating them rather than unifying the country and building consensus to get things done. She prides herself on working the system, not changing it,” the October 2007 memo added.

The memo was written by David Axelrod, a political adviser, as Obama’s nomination campaign stalled against Hillary Clinton during the height of the 2008 Democratic nomination process.

Rather than fight out their differences in policy, Mr Axelrod told Obama that the only way to secure a defeat was to attack Mrs Clinton’s character. The goal was to paint Obama as the “authentic ‘remedy’ to what ails Washington and stands in the way of progress” and to discredit his main rival in the process.

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Gee, I’m shocked. All this time I thought all that Hillary-hate was spontaneous.

/snark

It’s really hard to fight out differences in policy when you steal hers and claim it as your own. He couldn’t beat her in debates and had no record of accomplishments to point to, so what other choice did he have if he was going to win? It was his time and that old bitch was in the way. Don’t hate the playa, hate the game.

So how did that all work out, anyway?

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Panic in the Pachyderm Party

Andrea Mitchell: Romney Adviser Said Party Elites Will Find Alternative If Romney Can’t Win Florida

“I talked to a top Romney adviser tonight who said, ‘Look, if Mitt Romney cannot win in Florida then we’re going to have to try to reinvent the smoke-filled room which has been democratized by all these primaries. And we’re going to have try to come with someone as an alternative to Newt Gingrich who could be Jeb Bush, Mitch Daniels, someone.’ Because there is such a desperation by the so-called party elites, but that’s exactly what Gingrich is playing against,” Andrea Mitchell said on NBC tonight after the debate.

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Damn voters. What the hell makes them think they have any input in this process?

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Get your SOTU day face on

Happy Happy Joy Joy

How many lies can one teleprompter scroll in an minute? This may be TOTUS’ biggest test yet.

Open Thread.