Las Vegas Raiders Insider Podcast on the Latest on the GM/Coaching Search with Ben Johnson to the Bears
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00:00Hello everybody this is Hondo Carpenter your Las Vegas Raiders beat writer on
00:04Sports Illustrated and the host of the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast. As you
00:09may have already heard Ben Johnson at this point at the time of this taping is
00:13finalizing but all signs are he will be the Bears the next Bears head coach. He's
00:18been in the process of assembling a staff that's been going on for a little
00:22bit and he's getting all of that together. We're gonna dig into a little
00:28bit today on what happened but then but we're gonna spend most of our attention
00:32looking to what's coming. There was shock around the league. Agents were talking
00:39about it was expected to happen. It wasn't me. Multiple people reporting
00:44that he was the frontrunner. Never said the deal was done but certainly was the
00:48frontrunner. I know that the Raiders felt they had him. I know there were Raider
00:52players that felt they had him and people that I talked to in Detroit even
00:58as late as last night I talked to one and said do you happen to know is he
01:02gonna just talk to the Raiders or is he gonna talk to multiple teams and they
01:07and they said that they anticipated he would talk to a couple of teams just to
01:12figure everything out in his head but he speaks to the Bears and BAM it's done.
01:17Raiders lose him. He was their frontrunner. That is the guy that that
01:22they had targeted but it's not like there are not some great candidates out
01:27there. We've talked about him Pete Carroll being one. Another name that I
01:33just was told now that someone believes is going to at least come into the
01:38picture is Liam Cohn who's the offensive coordinator with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
01:44Right now the names that I'm hearing around the league are it's Pete Carroll
01:49or Liam Cohn but I think it may be a little early to say that right at this
01:54moment because who knows they probably have others in the back of their head
01:57that they interviewed and really liked. I don't think if you're the Raiders that
02:01Pete Carroll is a second place prize in the least but he's a heck of a coach and
02:06I know he fits more of what they liked at the very beginning when I told you
02:13that ideally they wanted a coach with experience but were willing to be Tomlin
02:19which happened when they visited with Ben Johnson. As far as the GM search I
02:25think I've been telling you all along Spytek was the leader however the
02:31interview of Newmark was because that's who Ben Johnson wanted as his guy and
02:36that's why the Raiders certainly looked in that direction. With Ben
02:41going in another area I still believe Spytek will end up being the general
02:46manager as you know he's the AGM with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and that's the
02:52connection of course because he's very familiar with Liam Cohn the offensive
02:55coordinator there in Tampa Bay. There's going to be a lot of posts looking at
03:04what happened here and this is why the NFL has the process that they do. I
03:10talked about the other day people said why is this stretching on it could it
03:14could make it where it was harder for the Raiders to hire Ben well that's why
03:19you got to wait till the according to the NFL rules till guys are done till
03:24their teams are done and that's exactly what happened the Raiders felt confident
03:29around the league the overwhelming consent I think Ian Rappaport said it or
03:34somebody talked about among agents in NFL that is just the expectation that
03:38he's going there I know that I heard from people who were possibly going to
03:45join him in Las Vegas and I know that that was the sentiment again from many
03:50in the building and outside all around the NFL and in Detroit in fact last
03:56night like I said someone in the Detroit organization was telling me about the
04:03kind of guy the Raiders were getting and he was 100% convinced so there you go
04:09that's the latest now what do the Raiders do do they go for the young up-and-coming
04:13offensive mind like a Liam Cohn do they go for a Pete Carroll who's experienced
04:19a Hall of Famer you already know what you're getting with Pete there's no
04:23experimentation there's absolutely no guessing I will tell you I was working
04:30on an article for when Ben Johnson was going to get hired on the pros and cons
04:35of Ben Johnson and there are a lot of pros no no denying that just because
04:41he's not going to the Raiders doesn't mean he isn't a great coach but one of
04:45the cons that I heard that I thought was very interesting was that people talked
04:50about him being an offensive genius and all of that but that he was kind of
04:54introverted and not a a as motivational of a guy in fact one person told me he's
05:02a lot like Josh McDaniels great guy great offensive mind but he's kind of
05:07has that same personality so I was going to talk about how will that how does Ben
05:12Johnson address you know not necessarily being like most head coaches and how
05:18they lead from the foot so that's a fascinating thing to look at we're going
05:22to have a lot on that we're going to continue to work the phones to find out
05:27everything that's going on but again I think spy tech now is clearly back in
05:32the lead to be the offensive coordinator because of his relationship with Brady I
05:36think Pete Carroll it clearly has to be right up there and Liam Cohn but they've
05:44interviewed so many others you this could go on a million different
05:48directions overall I've had a couple people email me and just simply say what
05:55a disaster for the Raiders I don't think it's a disaster for the Raiders
05:58at all yeah that's the guy they wanted yep that's the guy they thought they
06:02were going to get and so did everybody else but they didn't and I've heard a
06:08couple of thoughts but nothing I've been able to confirm as to why it didn't
06:11happen I'll go continue to work on that but at the end of the day you want
06:16somebody that wants to be there and you want somebody that you want and if the
06:21Raiders were to end up with Pete Carroll in this nobody should be acting
06:25like this is a bad thing Pete Carroll is a heck of a coach Liam
06:30Cohn is certainly an option although I have said to you all along I would think
06:35when you're Raiders you want somebody with experience and I think that would
06:38be something that Liam Cohn would have to overcome so there's a lot of
06:42information there we're going to continue to work the phones we're going
06:47to continue to bring you all the information that we can but I wanted to
06:51get this out to you right away thank you for listening and again if you go
06:56back and listen to the first pod we did we kind of talked about what they were
06:59looking for originally and that's where they continued now what direction to
07:06they go I think the the important thing is and I don't expect this to happen
07:10there can't be panic okay this organization is not going to rise or
07:16fall on one hire it's now finding the right one but certainly they've
07:20interviewed enough people then they've talked to enough people that now it's
07:24not like they're starting over at ground zero thanks everybody we'll see you
07:28again tomorrow appreciate you listening have a wonderful day thank you