National Football League

Oakland Raiders Coaching Changes: Musgrave Out, Downing In

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 4:29 p.m. ET

Fansided, Gagan Aujla/FanSided via Just Blog Baby

Entering the offseason, multiple reports indicate that the Oakland Raiders will be making a key coaching change on offense.

Coming off their Wild Card loss to the Houston Texans, the Oakland Raiders officially entered the offseason with the other non-playoff/eliminated teams. There were many questions surrounding whether the Raiders would retain the services of some key coaches — one of those coaches being offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave.

It was reported Tuesday afternoon that Jack Del Rio and the team have chosen to not renew Musgrave’s contract, which expired at the end of the season.

#Raiders former OC Bill Musgrave had a contract that was expiring. OAK lets it expire. May have an in-house candidate in QB Todd Downing.

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 10, 2017

Musgrave led the Raiders to the 6th ranked offense in the NFL with 373.3 total yards per game, as well as the 7th ranked scoring offense at 26 points per game.

The expectation by most was that Musgrave would be brought back due to the production of the offense in his second season as offensive coordinator.

It is expected that QB coach Todd Downing will be promoted to the offensive coordinator position to replace Musgrave. Downing was considered a “hot” commodity, and was linked to multiple offensive coordinator positions.

Downing was a “hot” coach and had been contacted about “4 or 5 jobs” around the league. #Raiders had to make a choice

— Vic Tafur (@VicTafur) January 10, 2017

The decision to let Musgrave walk and to promote Downing seems to be a “one or the other” situation. So Del Rio and the team obviously feel like Downing is more valuable than Musgrave — thus, Musgrave is out and Downing is in.