Al Davis Might Like Kevin Gilbride to Be His Next Head Coach

While football fans (and perhaps owners) in Washington and Cleveland are having dreams about Bill Cowher leaving the confines of the CBS studio and leading their teams to glory, the Oakland Raiders seem to be setting their goals a little lower. Perhaps more realistic, mind you, but definitely lower. Much, much lower.

According to ESPN's Chris Mortensen (via PFT) Raiders owner Al Davis, supposedly, is a big fan of New York Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride. Seriously? Kevin Gilbride? This is the name you can come up with? Granted, in the efforts of fairness, this is just a report of a name that might be considered -- but Kevin Gilbride?

Gilbride is, perhaps, most famous for the run-and-shoot offense in his days as Houston Oilers offensive coordinator -- when he was punched on the sidelines by Buddy Ryan, father of current Raiders defensive coordinator Rob Ryan -- and going 6-16 as the head coach of the San Diego Chargers during the 1997 and 1998 seasons.

This isn't to say Gilbride is an incompetent boob that doesn't know what he's doing. He's a very, very good offensive coordinator. Some guys are simply better suited to handle one aspect of the meal, as opposed to cooking the entire dinner -- Norv Turner, I'm looking at you -- and Gilbride is, in my opinion, one of those guys.

That said, there's a plethora of young, up-and-coming assistants with fresh minds around the NFL -- Josh McDaniels, for example -- so why not to try to find the next Mike Smith, Tony Sparano or John Harbaugh, as opposing to rummaging through the NFL's recycle bin?

Come on, Al, you can do better than this.