Tony Sparano made a point to talk about the number of young players to contribute this season as he stumps to be the next head coach of the Oakland Raiders.
“We have started to set a little bit of a standard here and has started to pave the road, I think, for what lies ahead in the future,” said Sparano, who was 3-9 as Oakland’s interim coach.
Sparano said 27 players on the team that are either first-or-second-year players played a total of 10,196 snaps in 2014. The Raiders were a strange mix this season. They were the oldest team in the league, yet they were also somehow young and inexperienced.
Yet, Sparano thinks that youth will pay off down the road.
“Those are all good things for the future here, and that’s the message that I left [the players] is just talking about the future,” Sparano said. “The things that they needed to do here in the offseason and the direction that the Oakland Raiders are heading.”
Clearly that is going to be a selling point of Sparano’s when he formally interviews with Oakland owner Mark Davis for the job.
In other Raiders notes:
The Raiders were ranked 32nd on third-down defense when Dennis Allen was fired after four games. They finished 14th in one of their best improvements.
Sparano said it is his understanding that middle linebacker Nick Roach will be able to play in 2015. He missed the entire season with a concussion he suffered in the preseason.
