Lowell Cohn: Raiders GM Reggie McKenzie learned from the best, and it shows

ALAMEDA

Reggie McKenzie is a general manager phenomenon. No one disputes that, not with the Raiders at 9-2 and a sure playoff team. Not with all the talent McKenzie has brought to Oakland.

What makes McKenzie so good, aside from his smarts and judgment? To understand McKenzie, you must understand a new concept. Call it the General Manager Tree.

Not such a foreign idea. You understand coaching trees - the Bill Walsh Tree, the Bill Parcells Tree. Apply that to general managers. Go back to the great Raiders teams and learn the background for McKenzie and what he is doing now.

When the Raiders were a force in the NFL, they had two constants. Al Davis and Ron Wolf. Davis was the leader, the man with the vision. Wolf was the personnel guy. Among the most brilliant personnel guys in NFL history.

Wolf helped draft Art Shell, Gene Upshaw, Ken Stabler, Jack Tatum, Howie Long, Marcus Allen and Matt Millen. Wolf was a championship builder. And he stood up to Davis. Davis was the biggest voice in the building. No one stood up to him - except Wolf. Wolf would tell Al he was wrong. Davis listened.

In 1991, Wolf became GM of the Packers. He brought in Mike Holmgren, Brett Favre, Reggie White. You know the deal. Wolf made the Packers a superpower.

In Green Bay, a young, eager man was working his way up the ranks as a personnel guy. The young man was McKenzie and he started humbly as a personnel assistant. He learned from Wolf. The system. The discipline. The hard unsentimental thinking. He learned from one of the most revered men in football history.

McKenzie is old-style Raider with Packers mixed in. He is a Ron Wolf disciple. In the Ron Wolf Tree. You don’t know that, you don’t know McKenzie.

John Schneider is in the Wolf Tree. He built the Seahawks into the perpetual contender they are now. He learned under Wolf in Green Bay. He along with McKenzie.

You want more? The director of football operations in Green Bay is Eliot Wolf - yes, he’s Ron’s son.

And there’s Shaun Herock, the Raiders’ current director of college scouting. Where is he from? The Ron Wolf Packers, of course. Shaun’s dad, Ken, was a significant personnel executive with the Raiders, instrumental in assembling the Raiders’ Super Bowl XI championship team. Whom did Ken Herock work with at the Raiders? Ron Wolf and McKenzie, of course.

So, McKenzie is part of a group with a pedigree. This is your Oakland Raiders GM.

When he came to the Raiders in 2012, the organization was a wreck. As Davis got older, his ideas about football became eccentric. He fell in love with the Scouting Combine. Fell in love with running fast and jumping high. Fell in love with all the measurables. If Davis was looking for a decathlete, he might have been a big winner. It’s just that most of these guys couldn’t play football. And Davis became more radical the older he got. Took chances. Was desperate. Operated on whim and hope.

McKenzie took over a roster burdened with non-football players. He became Ron Wolf. Cleansed the roster. Brought in football players. Very slowly undid the bad Davis had done.

He brought in personnel people who had multiple views. Remember, under Davis, Al’s was the only significant voice and scouts fell in line. McKenzie encourages diversity of ideas.

He is quiet, soft-spoken. Lopes along. But he’s big - massive. Big head. Push him, he gets intimidating. Vocal. Mostly, he takes things in. Thinks deeply. Analyzes everything. A first-rate talent evaluator.

He met reporters the other day in a huge conference room at Raiders headquarters. The room glass enclosed. He spoke so softly the reporters leaned across the table to hear him. Everyone leaning in McKenzie’s direction, McKenzie controlling the room with his quietness.

He chose his words carefully, a man aware of words. He said “dominate” and “domination.” He wore silver and black. In the hallway, past the glass wall of the conference room, hung a photo of Davis. Davis young, virile and tough. Looked at from a certain angle, the photo sat on McKenzie’s left shoulder. Al Davis on his shoulder.

McKenzie said Mark Davis was patient with the losing.

“He knew it wasn’t going to be a quick fix. We could try it, but that wasn’t my style. That says a lot because he’s probably getting it from a whole lot of people to hurry up.”

He explained why he made a major investment in the offensive line. “That’s where it all starts,” he almost whispered. “I believe in that, always have. The philosophy is the little people can’t play unless the big people are there to help.

“Your quarterback - he can have the greatest arm, greatest decision-making, but when that decision-making is stymied by a pass rush and you see him on the ground all the time, that’s not going to do your quarterback any good. Nobody wants to be bullied, pushed around. We want to be the team that does so.”

He spoke about Derek Carr.

“He’s always had a strong arm. He’s always been smart. The quick release. That was there. His leadership, it was almost, to me, instant.

“For him to have the guys allow him to lead so quickly, that, moreso than talent, was a little surprising - how quickly he got the veterans in. Being able to lead veterans.

“When you get a veteran like (Michael) Crabtree, who’s been around and had success, to instantly accept a young quarterback, and (Crabtree) wants to prove himself to him, not asking Derek to prove himself to Crab.”

Someone asked why players gravitate to Carr, who isn’t a Ken Stabler or Brett Favre - a free-living, wild kind of quarterback. Carr doesn’t even swear.

“He’s got a sense of humor,” McKenzie said. “It’s not like he’s a dork. He’s got charisma. He can sit at the table with Justin Tuck and sit at a table with Seabass and sit at a table with Marquette (King) and it’s a good lunch period for him. He’s adaptable.”

On Crabtree: “He wanted to be a Raider. You can feel his joy being in that uniform. I can’t speak for how he felt across the bay. Aside from that, he can catch the football (with) 10 people draped on him. What he’s done for Amari (Cooper), being the elder statesman in that room. It’s ideal.”

McKenzie said he expects to lock up Carr and Khalil Mack long term. He said he has a plan for that. He always has a plan. He learned from the best.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular, go to the Cohn Zohn at cohn.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.