Lowell Cohn: Jack Del Rio a steady, calm leader for Raiders

Jack Del Rio is head coach as catcher. This you need to know.

His Raiders are tied for best record in the AFC - 7-2. They surely will be a playoff team. Praise goes to general manager Reggie McKenzie for assembling a young, talented roster. But praise also goes to Del Rio for handling that roster.

“Handling” is the key word here. A catcher “handles” a pitching staff, gets the most out of each pitcher. The ability to handle diverse people with diverse talents is what we admire in Buster Posey. Think of Del Rio that way.

Sure, he was a linebacker at USC and in the NFL, but he also was a catcher at Hayward High School and USC. He caught a lefty named Randy Johnson for the Trojans.

What do we know about catchers?

They handle and they manage. OK, we’ve got that.

They see the whole picture. Have the hugest, most expansive television screen of any player on the field - more even than the pitcher.

And they are relatively anonymous. Almost invisible. You don’t actually see them, certainly not their faces. You see the mask, chest protector, shin guards. They are in hiding.

You hear about them mostly when they make a mistake - passed ball, bad throw into center field when a runner tries to steal second base. Or when a foul ball hits them smack in the face.

Which means catchers generally are not limelight guys. They are hard workers. And they are people who look at things and think about what they see. All necessary qualities for a football head coach.

Del Rio manages the Raiders like a good catcher.

Last season - his first in Oakland - he understood the great expectations for Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper and Derek Carr.

He also knew they were young players and great expectations can damage young people. Ask Charles Dickens.

So, Del Rio backed off on the pressure. Stressed Mack, Cooper and Carr and the entire team were undergoing a maturation process - were works in progress, as they say. He understood, I believe, the need to keep the Raiders as stress free as possible. Expected Mack, Cooper and Carr to contribute what they could at that point of their careers. Not what they were expected to contribute four years from then. Made sure not to destroy their confidence, not to give them a reason for self-doubt. Self-doubt is a self-killer in sports.

“Don’t worry about getting this guy out with your curveball. Stay within yourself. You can strike him out with heat on the corner.”

That kind of thing.

Bill Walsh was a great football coach. On that we can agree. He often used the phrase “cutting edge.” I heard him say it many times. And he always said it in a condescending way, said it as criticism. “Coach So-and-So is not cutting edge.”

Walsh meant Coach So-and-So did not have brilliant schemes. Had nothing new to add to football thinking, to the accumulated knowledge passed down from Sid Gilman to Al Davis to Walsh. You get the idea. Walsh had contempt for every Coach So-and-So.

I wonder if Walsh would have considered Del Rio a Coach So-and-So. If Walsh did, he would have been wrong.

I don’t believe Del Rio is a cutting-edge theorist. Don’t believe he’s a football philosopher at the level of Walsh or Bill Belichick, the ultimate cutting-edge coaches.

But Del Rio has special attributes.

He played linebacker in the NFL and was good. He became a linebacker coach. He was a defensive coordinator. He was a head coach before he came to the Raiders. That means he is foundationally sound, understands the concepts of the game from the ground floor up.

He realizes what is reasonable to expect, understands progress is incremental. Is patient. Doesn’t allow emotions to get the best of him.

Isn’t like Rex Ryan. Ryan’s clubs are roller-coaster teams, riding the tracks, going up and down the hills of Ryan’s up-and-down personality. He is not even keel. Changes week to week. Can be outlandish. Or emotionless. If he isn’t psyched up, he flat-lines his own players.

Del Rio is the exact opposite. Stays even. Takes the long view. He was a catcher. Think Bruce Bochy.

And Del Rio has something else. The demeanor, the posture, the look, the large athletic body, the pride, the confidence of a great athlete. He is someone young players will follow.

So, although Del Rio is not cutting-edge in the sense Walsh meant, he is cutting edge in how he handles people. In how he understands people. In how he brings out people. This is an essential talent we don’t see on the field, but it is an enormous talent. And it’s right for the young Raiders.

I’m saying there are more aspects to coaching than design and scheme.

There is the wisdom aspect. Del Rio has the wisdom aspect. And he gets his assistants to realize his football vision on the field. Walsh knew all about the wisdom aspect. Walsh had all the aspects.

Some cutting-edge coaches are not good head coaches. Chip Kelly comes to mind. He sees himself as cutting edge, with all that no-huddle silliness on offense. Like he reinvented football. Good luck with that, Chip. Dirk Koetter in Tampa is another cutting-edge washout.

On Monday when you watch the Raiders playing the Texans in Mexico City, and when you see Del Rio on the sideline, imagine him in the squat, as Mike Krukow likes to say. Imagine him staring straight ahead, businesslike, putting down his fingers for the sign, and you’ll understand why the Raiders are on the rise, and you’ll understand how they got there.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular, go to the Cohn Zohn at cohn.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.