There’s a lot of uncertainty around who will be the Oakland Raiders’ general manager in 2019, with many potential candidates (including former Giants’ GM Jerry Reese) reportedly declining to interview over concerns about how head coach Jon Gruden treated previous GM Reggie McKenzie (who was fired earlier this month, but only after a season where Gruden was maintaining his own personnel staff alongside McKenzie’s) and how much power the new GM will have. But we now know the name of at least one candidate who did interview with the team: NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock. NFLN’s Ian Rapaport and Mike Garafolo first reported the news of Mayock’s interview Sunday, and Mayock confirmed to media members later (while in the press box for the Raiders’ game against the Kansas City Chiefs) that he interviewed:
Mike Mayock is in the press box for today's #Raiders game in Kansas City but said just now he was scheduled to come to this game anyway. He confirmed an interview with the Raiders but said: "I know they've interviewed a whole bunch of guys." https://t.co/6c6YkyEBux
— Matt Kawahara (@matthewkawahara) December 30, 2018
Both Mayock’s interview and his “they’ve interviewed a whole bunch of guys” comment may suggest that it might not be as hard for the Raiders to land a top GM candidate as earlier reports had suggested. While some candidates like Reese have definitely turned them down, Mayock is a prominent analyst who’s received GM discussion before with other teams. And his interest here suggests that perhaps the red flags with the Raiders aren’t going to dissuade everyone. (However, this could also be about Mayock being eager to get out of TV and into a NFL front office; he’s been working in TV since 2001 and has been with NFLN since 2004, but expressed some unhappiness earlier this year about not getting more chances to work as a game analyst.)
There are still a lot of questions with this GM job, though, from Gruden’s involvement on the personnel side to where they’ll play next season (everything from San Francisco to London has been floated). And there’s the challenge of taking a job with a team that’s about to move for a year, and then about to move again to Las Vegas in 2020; that’s not an ideal living situation for everyone. This report does suggest there’s a fair bit of interest in the job still, though, and that’s good for the Raiders. We’ll see who they wind up picking, but whoever it is is going to have some work to do.
