Mike Holmgren Confirms Meeting With Raiders

Update:

Former Browns president Mike Holmgren confirmed that he recently met with the Oakland Raiders brass including owner Mark Davis and GM Reggie McKenzie.

However, Holmgren specifically mentioned that “no jobs were discussed” during the meeting.

“Yeah, I did go down there,” Holmgren told Mitch Levy of KJR radio in Seattle, via Pro Football Talk.  “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.”

Holmgren was asked if he would consider coaching the Raiders next year to which he responded: “Well, you know what? Now we’re gonna start something else again.”

But Holmgren followed that up with: “Probably not.  Probably not.”

Holmgren didn’t completely rule out the possibility of returning to coaching at some point if the right opportunity presented itself. His career record is 161-111 (59.19%) in the regular season and 13-11 in the postseason.

We’ll have more regarding the Raiders head coaching search as the news is available.

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Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reports that there has been “strong and persistent chatter” in recent days linking former Packers and Seahawks HC Mike Holmgren to the Raiders’ coaching job.

According to Florio, Holmgren actually visited the team’s facility this week.

Raiders owner Mark Davis is expected to allow GM Reggie McKenzie to hire another head coach, even though things did not go well with Dennis Allen. There’s non secret that Davis would like Jon Gruden, but in the event he remains with ESPN, McKenzie could target someone he’s familiar with like Holmgren given that it’s unlikely that Holmgren would ask to have McKenzie replaced as a condition upon taking the job.

Other speculative options for the Raiders include current 49ers HC Jim Harbaugh and Stanford HC David Shaw.