Oakland Raiders head coach hue Jackson had himself and interesting scenario on his hands this past Sunday as he tried to figure out the best way to go about handing his quarterback situation. Play Kyle Boller? Play Carson Palmer? Seems like a no-win situation for the get go. Hue went on with Murph and Mac on KNBR to explain his reasoning, and his thoughts on the situation moving forward.Whether or not he thinks he mishandled the QB situation:
"No I don't think so. My goal was to get him [Palmer] back into practice mode, getting him back to throwing the football, and obviously he needed to practice a little bit with his teammates and that's what he did. There was never any question in my mind what needed to happen. Kyle (Boller) needed to start. He knew the system, he knew the players, and I think that's what everybody thought. Everybody else wanted to make a big deal about here he is, he should be playing, and because you put him on the team he needs to start. I think when I put Aaron Curry on the team I knew he needed to play because he had been playing."
Like I said before, Hue had a real lose-lose situation. Throw out Kyle Boller and roll the dice (which came up snake eyes) or toss Carson Palmer to the wolves and start an un-ready quarterback. Palmer had to come in in that second half, most QB's that have that bad a half of football do get yanked, it was simply a fact of Palmer not being game ready i.e. timing, accuracy, field presence. He'll get there.
On the idea that Palmer didn't know he was going to play Sunday:
"I think if you talk to Carson, and really I didn't hear it that way because I didn't look at it, but when I said to Carson ‘hey look do you want to go into this game and get some reps?' He said ‘yes.' That's what the conversation was. It's not like I threw him in the game and said ‘you better go in.' I think how he looked at it was ‘hey look I knew I wasn't totally ready to play but I need to get in there and get some work because there was no preseason games."
I don't totally like the idea that a game midway through a season could be looked at like 'preseason' but I see the logic here. The game was pretty much out of hand already by halftime, might as well get some of the rust shook off of your new quarterback.
If he [Jackson] knew he would face this kind of adversity:
"There's no doubt. I already knew this was coming at some point, not like this because you don't know who's gonna get injured or how you're gonna get through this and that's why we don't blink. I'm not gonna blink about any of this. This is part of the job. I knew this could happen when I took the job. Things aren't always gonna go right and be perfect but I think if you stay to it, you stay consistent, you keep pressing on, and keep working at it, good things are gonna happen. I have total faith in that.
An NFL head coach having a high-stress job under microscopic evaluation for every move you make, including dealing with unforeseen adversity? No way.