Las Vegas Raiders Insider Podcast on the NFL Case of New Silver and Black GM Tom Telesco
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00:00 Hi everybody, this is Hondo Carpenter from Sports Illustrated's FAN Nation Las Vegas
00:06 Raiders Insider Podcast.
00:08 It's great to be with you today.
00:10 Got a lot that I want to discuss with you.
00:12 Got a lot that we need to get into.
00:16 Obviously I told you I thought the Raiders would hire a general manager yesterday and
00:19 they did.
00:20 I told you I was not reporting it as fact, but that I thought it was going to be Champ
00:25 Kelly.
00:26 I was not, it was Tom Telesco, the former Los Angeles Chargers coach who was fired from
00:35 the Chargers after 11 seasons.
00:38 Now we've talked about Telesco a lot and I spent a ton of time yesterday talking to people
00:46 who know him, trying to learn him.
00:50 I'm going to be meeting with him today.
00:53 I want to dig in with you real quick on Telesco, where the Raiders are at in my assessment
01:01 of it.
01:02 Now, first of all, I say this because I want you to understand how I approach things.
01:11 I'm not a Raider fan.
01:13 I cover the team.
01:15 The first thing that really got me was the surprise of so many people.
01:24 I too was surprised.
01:26 I'm not saying that I wasn't.
01:27 I thought there was a good chance that he would be part of the organization.
01:33 I didn't think he would get the general manager's job for a couple of reasons, and none of them
01:38 have to do with him.
01:40 You've had Champ in the building doing everything.
01:44 He sat in on head coaching interviews and you extended the process so long, number one.
01:54 Number two, you then only interviewed one candidate who had significant experience.
02:04 He was one that on the surface you could look at several things and be critical of.
02:11 If you wanted to go there, I would have thought they would have interviewed more people.
02:14 Again, it's not a slam on Telesco.
02:20 Number three, because it came down to Dodds and Kelly and Telesco was the third option,
02:33 and I knew what so many people felt, I thought that Mark would go with that.
02:38 Hiring your coach first certainly is an awkward situation and makes it a very unique situation.
02:48 That said, none of that has to do with Telesco.
02:51 Mark Davis made the decision.
02:52 I have told you numerous times he doesn't care what I think, doesn't care what you think,
02:56 and he shouldn't.
02:57 His team.
03:00 So now we move on and they hire Telesco.
03:03 I had done some research on him and had told you previously, very good guy, Bill Pauly
03:10 and disciple.
03:12 Bill is considered by many, if there was a Mount Rushmore of general managers, he would
03:17 be on it.
03:19 So you like that background of him.
03:21 So let's start first of all, looking at what he did.
03:26 He starts with the Buffalo Bills, which is where he's from in '91.
03:30 '95 he's with Carolina.
03:34 Then he goes to the Colts.
03:39 Then he goes to the Bolts where he's been at the Bolts for 11 years.
03:43 Went there in 2013 and he was there for 11 seasons with the Bolts.
03:49 And then now he's the general manager of the Raiders that are getting fired after the Raiders
03:53 put up 63 points on him.
03:55 The whole staff got wiped out.
03:58 Now he did some very good drafting in the early rounds of the draft.
04:08 The Chargers perennially struggled with depth, which was a big deal.
04:19 And when he left and was terminated from the organization, they had over $40 million over
04:27 the cap.
04:28 They were in cap space hell with the worst coach in the National Football League when
04:35 he got fired.
04:36 Those are all facts.
04:38 Now, I told you several days ago that while he was not the main contract negotiator, he
04:44 was the overseer.
04:45 And I was told by someone in the organization that, who has no bone to pick against him,
04:52 they thought he did a very good job considering the circumstances.
04:56 And I'm going to get to that in a minute.
04:59 Those are all factual things that you want to put on the table.
05:04 But now you move to Tolesco.
05:07 And so, as I always do with you, I talk extensively with people around the league because I want
05:15 to know what their thoughts of him are, what do they think of him.
05:21 And I was very surprised at several of the answers.
05:27 Every one of them, these are men that I know, these are men that I've known a long time,
05:34 these are men of character, all told me, very good guy, very good person, very good guy.
05:43 The players will trust him because he's trustworthy.
05:47 I've talked to players who played for him.
05:50 I've talked to people who've coached for him, people who've worked in management with him,
05:57 and people who know him from other organizations.
05:59 So I covered every space that there could.
06:04 They all told me, good guy.
06:06 More than one person said, if Tom tells you something, you have a right to stick with
06:10 it and to believe in it.
06:13 I thought all that was very, very fascinating.
06:17 Now moving along, when I would talk with people, they would bring up the things I just brought
06:26 up with you, the lack of depth.
06:30 And one of the things that was shared with me by multiple people in the Chargers and
06:36 outside the Chargers was he arguably had the worst owner with the Chargers for 11 years.
06:46 And that the reason he was able to keep his job, with several of those reasons, the team's
06:52 vastly underperformed, was because the owner knew of some deficiencies that Telesco had
07:01 to deal with.
07:02 But that was a fascinating point that they brought up.
07:08 And so several of the things they were able to point out to me, you have to understand,
07:18 he had the owner he had, and he had to work within that parameter.
07:21 Had he had his track record at most NFL teams, he would never have lasted 11 years.
07:27 But he had it with a team where at least the owner under knew there are some decisions
07:31 being made that I want made as an owner.
07:36 And that goes there.
07:38 I thought that was all very, very fair.
07:42 And my job isn't to convince you that Telesco was a great hire or not a great hire.
07:49 My job is to disseminate information that I ascertain from other people and give to
07:54 you.
07:55 There were a couple of things that I thought were really interesting.
08:00 Now I've told you numerous times, not getting into politics, I'm getting into economics.
08:04 One of you said that the other day, and I thought that was a great line.
08:09 I know for a fact players that the Chargers wanted, that they did not want to go there
08:15 and play because they didn't want to pay California taxes.
08:18 And I've shared that to you multiple times, multiple times.
08:22 And so that will now become a very big selling point.
08:27 Number two, he's not going to be with a cash poor franchise anymore.
08:32 And number three, allegedly, and we have reasons to believe it, so I'm only saying allegedly
08:39 because we don't know right now, he has an owner that's going to let him do the things
08:45 he needs to do and spend the money he needs to spend.
08:48 So overall, that's where it sits with Telesco.
08:52 Someone asked me on a radio show last night, would you call it an overwhelmingly great
08:56 hire?
08:57 No.
08:58 Would you call it a bad hire?
09:01 No.
09:02 I think it's an interesting hire, but it's who's there now and you move forward with
09:10 it and you go forward with it.
09:13 And again, I think there are some decisions that were made here that are like his previous
09:18 job, not on Telesco.
09:22 To have, listen, hiring AP was the right choice, period.
09:28 I stand behind it and I believe that.
09:31 But to drag this out, I don't think was beneficial to your franchise.
09:38 And I think you could have waited and told AP, all right, you've got the job, put together
09:43 a staff, but I'm going to wait till we have a general manager.
09:48 Or this could have been handled quite a while ago.
09:52 Telesco was unemployed.
09:55 And you go interview the people that you want to interview and teams that are not playing
09:58 DODs and a few others.
10:05 And to make sure every I is dotted, every T is crossed.
10:09 And then you get your guy in here and he's working on the draft.
10:12 So the handling of the process, I think Mark Davis did not handle it well, but it's his
10:20 team and he doesn't care what I think, nor should he.
10:23 But what I would say to you is I think it was a good pick and now it's time to get to
10:31 work.
10:32 I find it very fascinating reading emails and comments from fans.
10:45 From one guy that said his kid had a birthday party last night and he was so depressed he
10:48 couldn't go.
10:51 Other people that put some in depression and then other people ecstatic because they didn't
10:56 want somebody with no experience.
10:59 The exuberation to me was fascinating watching the whole thing that went down.
11:05 I would tell you that I don't think there was anybody with the Telesco hire inside the
11:14 building that thought poorly of Tom as a person.
11:18 I think there were some people, I know, I can't say who were greatly disappointed that
11:25 Champ didn't get it.
11:26 Greatly disappointed.
11:28 But this is a business and the reality is the business goes on.
11:35 Now Champ remains under contract for one more year.
11:40 And as Telesco has to make the decision, do I want to keep Champ?
11:45 Champ's going to have some decisions about whether or not he wants to stay.
11:49 And I have no idea what he'll do.
11:51 I really sincerely don't, I would tell you.
11:53 But I think part of what goes through a person's mind is, "All right, they rejected me.
11:59 They didn't want me."
12:00 I shared this with you before.
12:03 The Raiders bench Derek Carr.
12:07 He goes out, starts looking for another team.
12:11 And all of a sudden they find out Brady's not coming and they have a never say never
12:18 approach.
12:19 Let's circle back and first of all, see if Derek would even be remotely interested in
12:24 staying and then they would have to go convince Mark Davis of that, which most people, myself
12:29 included, do not think that they could have convinced Mark Davis.
12:33 But when they circled back to Derek, the answer was no.
12:39 No, I know there's a market for me and I think it's time to move on.
12:44 There's that element of, and I'm not saying that Champ and Derek are married at the hip.
12:52 That's a human element of, "Okay, you didn't want me.
12:56 You had me sitting in on meetings, had me running the franchise.
13:00 I'm signing futures contracts earlier in the week or late last week and you don't want
13:05 me."
13:06 Okay, that's human nature.
13:07 I would not blame Kelly one bit if that's how he felt.
13:15 And that is the reality.
13:18 I think, and this is purely Hondo opinion, that when the dust settles, if Champ doesn't
13:28 get a GM job, that you will see him remain here.
13:36 That's what I believe.
13:37 That's my speculation.
13:38 Hope to find out more about that today.
13:42 Telesco would be wise to keep him.
13:46 Telesco was in the same division.
13:51 He has a good idea on the Raider roster for sure.
13:54 Not a handle on it by any stretch, but he's certainly farther along than like a Dave Ziegler
14:00 was when he came in from New England.
14:04 And I think it's going to be a new day.
14:06 Now, someone said to me when Ziegler and McDaniels got here, it was the Patriot way.
14:12 Do you think this is going to be the Charger way?
14:14 No.
14:15 And I want to explain my feelings behind that.
14:19 The Chargers way is dictated by a man that many believe is the worst owner in the National
14:24 Football League and an organization that is perennially cheap.
14:37 Now Raiders in their past have had to be very, very cheap.
14:43 Money was a huge issue.
14:45 That's not the case with this team anymore.
14:47 Mark Davis has proven I'll spend any amount of money that it takes, but my expectations
14:52 are I want to win her.
14:54 So that's where that sits right now.
14:56 I don't think there's going to be any type of a Charger way.
15:00 I don't think there's any type of a Charger way to bring.
15:03 This is the Raiders.
15:04 You've got AP in there who is going to do the Raider way.
15:09 So that is, I think AP is going to keep this franchise very grounded and very stable in
15:19 the Raider way.
15:21 They're going to have to come to some type of a understanding.
15:24 And I plan to ask Telesco about this today.
15:27 I mean, are you going to try to imprint what you want with Antonio Pierce or are you going
15:36 to imprint what you want based on what Antonio Pierce wants?
15:42 I think that's very, very important.
15:46 I think it's important that AP and Telesco have a very good working relationship.
15:51 I talked yesterday.
15:52 So if you didn't see the podcast, you can go back and check it tomorrow.
15:54 Yesterday, I think it's very important that there be esprit de corps.
16:00 I think the two men have to be able to disagree.
16:02 The two men have to be able to talk.
16:05 We have to find out what's the delineation.
16:08 If there's a disagreement and a decision cannot be made where both parties can come together,
16:15 who has final authority?
16:18 Who has final say?
16:19 I think that's important to know.
16:22 And I'm going to tell you right now, everyone knows the affinity that I have for AP, but
16:27 I hope Mark Davis's answer is Tom Telesco does, because that's the right way to do it.
16:36 That's the right way to do it and the way it should be done.
16:42 So today's podcast is not going to be as long as others because I'm going to have all of
16:48 the video from the press conference for you.
16:53 Now the press conference begins at one.
16:57 So I'll be posting it as soon as it's over.
16:59 I would expect it to probably go a half hour, 45 minutes, and there'd be a lot of discussion
17:05 afterwards.
17:06 So I would say one o'clock, probably you'll see the video sometime between 515, 530, maybe
17:13 545 Eastern, you know, 230, 245, maybe even three o'clock Pacific.
17:26 But I think today, if you're a Raider fan, I would think you would be disappointed that
17:33 they went away from Champ unless you just wanted a guy with experience, which is a very
17:37 fair opinion.
17:39 But I don't think that you need to be dogging on Telesco either.
17:44 I think this is your guy now.
17:47 And regardless of who you wanted, if you wanted Dotz, I know there's a ton of people that
17:50 wanted Dotz, this is your guy now.
17:53 So you rally around your guy.
17:55 It wasn't Telesco's fault that Champ Kelly didn't get the job.
17:58 It wasn't Telesco's fault that Ed Dotz didn't get the job.
18:01 Now, what's going to be interesting is if Dotz ends up in Los Angeles with Jim Harbaugh.
18:11 It's going to be interesting what that pairing is like.
18:16 And make no mistake, Telesco is going to have a big impact on this team and where they go,
18:24 as will AP.
18:26 And so really the direction is your GM and your head coach.
18:32 It really is.
18:34 And so now if Harbaugh and Dotz end up in Los Angeles, you're going to get a full frontal
18:41 view of them and what they do and what both franchises look like.
18:46 It's going to be a lot of fun.
18:47 And now you have an offseason of stability.
18:51 Combine coming up, draft coming up, free agency coming up, so many things coming up.
18:58 And now you get a front row seat to that, to watch how it all evolves, to watch how
19:03 it all happens.
19:05 And it's going to be great to watch and a lot of fun to watch.
19:08 Again, apologize for the shortness of this podcast today, but I'm going to have all that
19:12 video coming up later.
19:14 And I appreciate all of you.
19:16 So from all of us here at Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation, Las Vegas Raiders Insider Podcast,
19:21 thanks for joining us.
19:22 Please remember, follow me on IG @HondoSR.
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