Tag: Mark Davis

Mark Davis recently renewed his blessing for Colin Kaepernick to get a shot with Raiders

Credit due to Mark Davis for following through on his words that Raiders would ‘welcome [Colin Kaepernick] with open arms.

It has been five years since Colin Kaepernick has taken an NFL snap. The former 49ers starting QB in the Super Bowl was seemingly blacklisted from the league for starting the trend of kneeling during the playing of the national anthem in protest of racial profiling and police brutality.

There’s no question his talent would have been welcome across the league under normal circumstances. And despite several teams being asked about the possibility of signing Kaepernick and many responses that suggested they weren’t opposed to the idea, no team would come close to him.

For that reason, when Mark Davis was asked a couple years ago about whether he would be open to giving Kaepernick a shot, his response saying he had given his blessing for it didn’t generate much in the way of headlines.

Then just a month ago, Davis seemed to reiterate in somewhat stronger language his willingness to bring Kaepernick on board.

This response made some waves, but there is still a big difference between what Davis — or anyone for that matter — says the “would” do versus what they “will” do.

Still, with a whole new coaching staff and personnel department, it seemed a pretty clear message where he stands.

Now today, reports have the Raiders following through with their owner’s wishes and are giving Kaepernick a workout — something he has long sought, but rarely received.

It’s unclear whether Josh McDaniels and Dave Ziegler felt some pressure to give Kaepernick the shot Davis had wanted, or if they had been thinking about it already and his words gave them permission to pull the trigger. Regardless, there’s little doubt the Raiders are now proving Davis’s words were not same empty lip service we have heard from most around the NFL when Kaepernick’s name has come up.

Dan Ventrelle says he was fired as Raiders president for raising misconduct concerns

Former Raiders president Dan Ventrelle says female employees raised serious misconduct allegations and he was fired for reporting it.

Friday, after just seven months as Raiders president, the team announced Dan Ventrelle was not longer team President. This news sent similar shockwaves to that of the sudden resignation of former president Marc Badain just prior to the start of last year’s training camp.

At exactly 10am this morning, the Raiders put out a very brief statement, saying simply “Dan Ventrelle is no longer with the Raiders organization. We will have no further comment at this time.”

The curt nature suggested the parting was not on friendly terms.

A few hours later, Ventrelle put out a statement that confirmed his firing along with some serious allegations against owner Mark Davis.

Ventrelle says he had several female employees of the Raiders complain of a hostile work environment. And upon bringing this to Davis’s attention, he received a disturbing lack of concern. So, he took his concerns to the NFL and was therefore fired in retaliation.

He then ends the message suggesting he could seek legal action, potentially for wrongful termination.

This is clearly going to get even more messy from here. Definitely not what this organization needs with an entirely new coaching staff and personnel deartment.

Mark Davis says postponing game vs Browns is ‘competitive disadvantage’ for Raiders

Is the NFL putting the #Raiders at a ‘competitive disadvantage’ by postponing their game vs the #Browns? Mark Davis thinks so.

Understandably there are more than a few furious people today. Some are furious at the Browns, Rams, and Washington for their rash of positive COVID-19 cases. Some are furious with the NFL and NFLPA for what they see as going back on their words that they would not be re-scheduling those three games to Monday and Tuesday.

That goes for the fans, players, coaches, and otherwise. It’s a huge inconvenience if nothing else. Raiders owner Mark Davis says it puts the Raiders at a competitive disadvantage as he told ESPN’s Paul Gutierrez.

There is a lot here to unpack, so let’s do that.

Davis has a point about the short week situation. The Raiders were already preparing for a short week because the league had scheduled their game for Saturday. That doesn’t change, really. Now they just have to wait a few days to actually play that game.

What this means is the Raiders have essentially two short weeks in a row with the second off of a cross-country trip. Which, yeah, that’s a little annoying. Though it may not be *that* big of a deal. Each short week is just one day. Not like teams that play on Thursday which is shortening the week by three days.

Davis’s suggestion to move the game to Vegas is interesting. That would be a pretty good remedy, although likely not possible on short notice.

Where Davis gets way off track is bringing up the week leading up to the Tampa game last season. There is simply no comparison here.

First of all, we’re talking about the difference between a few of the Raiders offensive linemen vs over 20 Browns players with more testing positive seemingly by the hour. Just today — literally as the Raiders were about to get on their flight for Cleveland — Browns DE Jadeveon Clowney tested positive for COVID as well. These are all positive tests, mind you. Not close contacts.

Last season, in the week leading up the Bucs game, the Raiders had one player test positive (Trent Brown) and five other players placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list as close contacts, causing them to miss the week’s practices. The other four were the other Raiders starting offensive linemen. In the end, of those close contacts, only safety Johnathan Abram would miss the game.

Also, yeah, the league moved the game up…a few hours. From Sunday Night to Sunday afternoon. Let’s not like the game was moved up days or something. They merely flexed it out of primetime.

So, yeah, it sucks that the Raiders are having their game moved and probably a few thousand fans will have their game attending and watching plans disrupted or even ruined for something the Raiders had nothing to do with.

No question that’s terrible. And everyone has a right to be pretty angry about that. Mark Davis included. But other than the outside chance the Browns get back some of their players by Monday and the Raiders having a couple game weeks shortened by a day, the competitive disadvantage part is relatively minor.

Raiders owner Mark Davis wants Browns game moved to Las Vegas

Desperate to try to reach the playoffs, Raiders owner Mark Davis thinks his team is disadvantaged by the postponement and wants the game moved to Vegas:

The Cleveland Browns and Las Vegas Raiders will play Monday late afternoon football in Cleveland. Their Saturday game was postponed to Monday due to health concerns related to a COVID-19 outbreak among the Browns team.

Cleveland’s roster has had over 20 players on their reserve/COVID-19 list much of the week and would have been heavily depleted for Saturday’s matchup. The league’s bigger concern was continued spread both among players and between teams.

Raiders linebacker K.J. Wright believes that the league only moved the game due to favoritism toward the Browns despite two other games also being moved.

The team’s owner is also not happy about the decision to move the game back two days citing competitive disadvantages for Las Vegas. Mark Davis even went as far as to suggest the game should be moved to the Raiders stadium in Nevada to make it fairer:

Outside of the logistics of making that extreme change, Davis also seems to believe the game was moved to help the Browns despite the league noting that the decision was made on medical advice and not for competitive reasons.

For the Raiders, their slim hopes of a playoff birth rest on winning the rest of their games and having teams ahead of them, including Cleveland, lose many of their games. That, along with the shortened time between games from Week 15 and 16, seems to be the reason for such angst from Las Vegas over the postponement.

The Browns, for what it is worth, will also have the disadvantage of a quick turnaround with their road game against the Green Bay Packers on Saturday, Christmas Day.

Super Bowl LVIII will be played in Las Vegas on Feb. 11, 2024

A super time will be had by all when Super Bowl LVIII takes place in Las Vegas

The NFL made it official on Wednesday. Super Bowl LVIII will be played in Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium with the Raiders as the host team.

The game is scheduled for Feb. 11, 2024. The venue switched from New Orleans to Sin City because of the NFL’s decision to go to a 17-game schedule.

That pushed the Super Bowl’s date back and right smack into the middle of Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The city can handle a lot of partying but those two events would have been overwhelming at the same time.

Raiders owner Mark Davis is overjoyed:

The Raiders Are Thrilled The National Football League Has Selected Las Vegas To Host Super Bowl (58) LVIII In February 2024..

Hosting The 2022 Pro Bowl..The 2022 NFL Draft.. And Now The 2024 Super Bowl Are Just Some Of The Ancillary Benefits Resulting From The Public-Private Partnership We Created With The State Of Nevada To Bring The Raiders To Las Vegas And Build Allegiant Stadium.

It’s Only The Beginning.. But For Now…

Las Vegas … The Super Bowl Is Coming To The Sports And Entertainment Capital Of The World!

-Mark Davis-

If you want to get in early for priority access it is only a $2,500.00 deposit per person.

Raiders owner Mark Davis believes there should written report of Washington investigation

Raiders owner Mark Davis believes there should be a written report from the investigation into Washington’s workplace culture that cost Jon Gruden his job.

Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis is the first NFL owner to publicly say there should be a written report from the NFL’s investigation into Washington’s toxic workplace.

“Probably. Yeah, I think that there should be,” Davis said Wednesday when asked if he would like to see a written report, per Nicki Jhabvala of The Washington Post. “Especially with some of the things that were charged. Yeah, I believe so. I think people deserve it, especially the people there were ‘victims.’”

Davis was in the lobby of the New York hotel where NFL owners meetings had taken place over the last two days.

Davis, of course, was the owner most impacted by the leaked emails from former Washington team president Bruce Allen. His former coach, Jon  Gruden, sent numerous offensive emails back and forth to Allen when Gruden worked as an analyst for ESPN. Gruden took over as head coach of the Raiders in 2018 and resigned earlier this month.

Davis was asked if he had any recent conversations with Gruden.

“He’s hurt, he’s really hurt. I understand that. But he understands the ramifications of what he said,” Davis said of Gruden, per USA TODAY.

The Raiders have a long history of battling with the NFL that goes back to when Al Davis — Mark’s father — publicly sparred with the NFL for years.

“We’re Raiders. We’re used to this,” Mark Davis said.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell reiterated on Tuesday the league would not release details from the investigation into Washington.

 

Raiders GM Mike Mayock addresses Jon Gruden resignation, Mark Davis still refusing

Raiders GM Mike Mayock addresses Jon Gruden resignation, Mark Davis still refusing

Wednesday — two days after Jon Gruden’s abrupt resignation as Raiders head coach following the leaking of several offensive emails he had sent during his time as an ESPN analyst — Raiders GM Mike Mayock took to the podium to make a statement and answer questions. Something owner Mark Davis has not only yet to do, but has on more than one instance refused to do.

Monday Gruden put out a statement

“I have resigned as Head Coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. I love the Raiders and do not want to be a distraction. Thank you to all the players, coaches, staff, and fans of Raider Nation. I’m sorry, I never meant to hurt anyone.”

To which Mark Davis said simply:

“I have accepted Jon Gruden’s resignation as Head Coach of the Las Vegas Raiders.”

And that was it.

Wednesday, ESPN’s Paul Gutierrez reached out to Davis in the hopes that two days after the fact, the Raiders owner will have had a chance to collect his thoughts and thus have something to say. He did not. In fact, his only response was seemingly worse than saying nothing at all.

“I have no comment,” Davis said. “Ask the NFL. They have all the answers.”

The NFL should be answering some questions as well. But it’s very much on Davis to speak up and say what must be said. If for no other reason than optics and to keep anyone from having to interpret his words in a way he may not like.

One possible interpretation is that the NFL forced Mark’s hand in this and he’s not happy about it. Which, even if that’s true, it wouldn’t excuse the lack of a statement here. Mayock was forced to guess as to what Davis was dealing with.

“Mr. Davis was dealing with that. I think he wanted to be fair to Jon Gruden,” Mayock said, responding to a question about potential league pressure. “And he wanted to be fair to the Raiders organization. He knew ultimately he was going to have to make a decision, but I’m not getting into timelines. You’re going to have to talk to Mr. Davis for any more detail.”

Getting the answer straight from Mr. Davis would be great. But, again, he left it for his GM to come out and speak for him. Something Mayock claimed not to want to do, but was still put in the position to do so. First with regard to the decision for Gruden to coach last Sunday’s game despite the Raiders being in possession of the emails prior to the report on Monday.

“The reality of that is that Mark Davis really is the one that was dealing with that. And I think he felt like — and I don’t want to speak for Mark — but there was an awful lot of due diligence that had to go on inside of this. All I knew was a bombshell had dropped. The players talked about it, we talked about it with the players, Jon dealt with it and then, of course, I didn’t even know… Again, Mark was dealing with all the email stuff. We were trying to prepare for a football game. And then when the rest of it came out, I think Mark was already in the middle of his due diligence. I think he was trying to figure it all out. Again, I know what the guy stands for and I think he was trying to do the right thing.”

Then to defend the organization’s record on matters such as diversity and the like.

“The way I grew up the Raiders always stood for diversity,” Mayock said in his opening statement. “They had the first Latino quarterback Tom Flores who also became the second Latino head coach, the first African American head coach was Art Shell, the first female CEO was Amy Trask. Obviously, all of that was under Al Davis’s watch. Now, this week his son Mark Davis, I think, had a tough time. He had a tough week. He had to gather facts, he had to do his due diligence, and since the day I took this job almost three years ago, what Mr. Davis has preached has been three things; it’s been Diversity, Social Justice, and Domestic Violence.”

At some point Mayock spoke for himself and how he feels. And his answer was short, succinct, and appropriate for the situation.

“I do have emotion. And I am sad. And to be honest with you I’m sad for the whole Gruden family, not just Jon,” Mayock said. “But at the end of the day, we’re all accountable for our actions. And that’s how we have to look at it.”

All of that seemed easy enough to say. And it’s good to hear it from the GM, but he’s not the one who makes the decisions in the organization. That would be the owner. We should be hearing from that person.

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Jon Gruden on people making fun of Mark Davis’ hair: ‘I think that’s a bunch of (expletive)’

Jon Gruden didn’t hold back.

Mark Davis, the son of the legendary Al Davis, is a billionaire who owns the Las Vegas Raiders. Things seem to have gone pretty well for him in life and he seems to always be enjoying all that life has given to him.

But yeah, he also has the most “interesting” haircut of any NFL owner and it’s something that often gets made fun of by people on social media.

Well, he’s going to be profiled tonight on HBO’s Real Sports and when I saw this preview below I didn’t think Andrea Kremer would bring up Davis’ hair but she did just that when talking with Jon Gruden and now I need to see this whole segment.

Kremer asked what Gruden thought of people who make fun of Davis for his hair and the Raiders’ coach didn’t mince any words here, saying it was a bunch of BS.

You can see that part at around the 1:22 mark of this video:

Yup, that is something that I need to watch.

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Fans roasted the design of Raiders owner Mark Davis’ silver and black $14 million mansion

He settled on THAT design…

With the Raiders heading into their second season in Las Vegas, it probably makes sense for owner Mark Davis to build a permanent residence in Nevada. That’s the kind of thing you’d expect from someone with a $500 million net worth, at least.

But man, Davis is really diving into the Raiders theme with the design for his new home in Henderson, Nev.

A photo rendering of the soon-to-be-built $14 million, 15,000-square-foot home hit Twitter on Wednesday. It showed an ultramodern house decked out in glossy silver and black — similar to what we’ve seen with the Raiders’ futuristic Allegiant Stadium and Raiders Headquarters.

Again, it’s located in Henderson. That’s a lot of black for 100-plus-degree summer days. It’s also Mark Davis we’re talking about — the guy who uses a 2003 Nokia phone and drives a minivan hundreds of miles for the same haircut he’s had for decades.

Him with *that* house doesn’t add up. No wonder fans had jokes.

Raiders owner Mark Davis building mind-blowing home in Nevada

Raiders owner Mark Davis is having an amazing home built in Nevada

The Raiders call Las Vegas home. Team owner Mark Davis is going to call Nevada his home state, too, building an astonishing house in Henderson.

Talk about the ultimate in modern!

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports the mansion “\would have a “man cave,” a prep kitchen, a bar, a steam room, a library, a sleek pool area, a porte-cochere and an area for “guest/vendor parking.”

The house is on six acres in a luxury community. What other kind of community could such a home be based on?

The Review-Journal spoke to Bob Fielden, founder of Henderson-based RAFI Architecture and Design. He summed up the building perfectly.

As he sees it, visitors would be floored by Davis’ house when they drive up.

“They’re gonna say, ‘Holy s—-!’” Fielden said.