There’s really no way to judge the firing of Hue Jackson at this moment. I want to believe our new GM McKenzie is as good as advertized. I want to believe that Al Davis’s son Mark, is getting good advice on handling the team moving forward. If it improves the team, I’m all for it.But before we say it’s great to have our first GM in history other than Al Davis, let’s remember that the Raiders are Al Davis. I’ll say that again.The Raiders are Al Davis….Al Davis is the Raiders.You can’t love one without intrinsically loving the blueprint that Davis put on the team. You’d be a hypocrite to disagree.Davis was a pioneer in this league, and his height/weight/speed….speed above all else methodology of developing a franchise, his loyalty to “his” guys, his stubborn insistence of man press coverage with single deep safety, his philosophy that the QB must go down and must go down hard. The “Raider Mystique”. The Black and Silver credo of intimidation. These were all part of the Al Davis culture. And now it all feels more and more like the day Davis died. The Raiders kind of died with him. It’s very sad to remember, but it won’t ever be the same. I’ve followed the Raiders all my life, over 4 decades now. They are the one constant that hasn’t changed. Better or worse, they had Al Davis’s fingerprints all over them. As a franchise, they seemed like a monarchy among a cartel of colonials. Davis was the last of the true mavericks. While the rest of the owners were just a bunch of corporate bonus babies who never had to beat the mean streets to get what they got. Davis was a tough SOB before he was a rich owner, and maybe he did some regrettable and petty things, but he was true to himself and his vision of the Oakland Raiders. He always put winning ahead of money, and he proved it with his checkbook always rostering close to the most expensive team in the NFL. By firing Hue Jackson, it appears ostensively that Mark Davis is starting to cut ties with everything his father stood for. Jackson was a strong willed leader who had the Raiders moving in the right direction early in the season, but then it all unraveled with key injuries and awful defensive schemes. Certainly he could have done a better job toward the end of the season. But he was a rookie head coach; one that commanded respect in the locker room. His ego was out of control and he needed to be harnessed in a bit more, but firing him went too far.Now who will be the next coach? Will McKenzie bring in the Packers west coast offense? Will the Raiders go to a 3-4 defense? Will it be another year of transition, and another year of waiting for the Raiders to improve just to get back to mediocre? This 2011 Raiders team that was making strides since the Cable guy, is now blown up and the deck chairs are re-shuffled once again.And I’m not saying that they wouldn’t be changes for the better in this pass happy league. Just saying it won’t be the same. Even the changes mark improvements and the playoffs, only the black and silver uniforms will tell me that they are the Raiders. I’m afraid that they will be as bland as homogenous as the rest of the NFL, no longer a monarchy, but a colonist. Time will tell if Mark Davis has any of his pop’s moxie or if he’s just another inheritance baby mailing it to corporate.