Oakland Raiders visit confirmed by Mike Holmgren

On Sunday, ProFootballTalk confirmed that Mike Holmgren had visited the Oakland Raiders recently in a report that was interesting Sunday news in the wake of head coach Dennis Allen’s firing earlier last week. Monday afternoon that visit was confirmed by Holmgren himself as the head coach who has an outstanding 14 winning seasons admitted a visit with the Raiders took place.

While Holmgren did admit to visiting the Raiders, he did downplay the potential of himself being named the longterm head coach in Oakland when that person is named. According to PFT, Holmgren spoke candidly on Seattle rabout visiting the facilities during the bye to discuss film and other football related consulting with former Packers coworker Reggie McKenzie.

From PFT

"On Sunday, we reported that former Packers and Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren visited the Raiders last week, and that he could end up being the next coach of the team.  Appearing Monday on KJR radio’s Mitch in the Morningshow in Seattle, Holmgren confirmed both aspects of the report.“Yeah, I did go down there,” Holmgren told Mitch Levy.  “A couple of years ago, I had met with [owner] Mark [Davis] about possibly working with the Raiders, and it didn’t work out. . . .  And [G.M.] Reggie McKenzie did work with me in Green Bay for many, many years.  So I do have a relationship with him, those are all true.  So they phoned me up, I went down there for a day and looked at some film.  They had the bye after the London game.  And just to float some ideas, and get another opinion of the team and what was going on.  No jobs were discussed.  Nothing like that, it was more just a pop in and pop out, and that’s what I did.”When asked by host Levy whether Holmgren definitely won’t be the coach of the Raiders, Holmgren was far from unequivocal.“Well, you know what?” Holmgren said.  “Now we’re gonna start something else again.”He then measured his words carefully:  “Probably not.  Probably not.”Which also means possibly so.Asked generally about the possibility of coaching any team, the 66-year-old Holmgren likewise didn’t slam the door.“Every once in a while, you get a phone call or some little itch there,” Holmgren said.  “And I don’t know if that’ll ever go away.”"

Holmgren is 66 and as we stated yesterday, probably is not too eager to put his legacy as well as his free time on the line to return to head coaching at 66. That doesn’t mean he would be a worthy candidate as between his first year head coaching and his 2008 end in Seattle there were just three losing seasons under Holmgren’s watch. Those are numbers that are far better than any coach attached to the job right now, but the 66 year old is probably not interested in getting back into the head coaching game.