NEW YORK – The Raiders have been here before, selling a new coach, a fresh direction and the promise that this time would be different.
Mark Davis knows that better than anyone.
But six games into a season that has produced three victories and a pair of narrow losses to AFC heavyweights, the Raiders owner sees something beyond another hopeful beginning.
He sees an organization finally working from the same playbook. That includes first-year head coach Klint Kubiak, who the Raiders envision building a long-term partnership with prized rookie quarterback Fernando Mendoza.
“I think he’s doing a great job,” Davis said of Kubiak during an exclusive interview with The Post on Tuesday at the NFL owners meetings. “He’s building a culture. I have a whole lot of faith in him.”
The optimism extends beyond the sideline.
With Davis, minority owner Tom Brady and general manager John Spytek establishing the direction, and Kubiak implementing it, the Raiders have an alignment that has too often eluded them.
It connects their coaching hires to their personnel decisions to the patient development of Mendoza.
According to multiple sources, that cohesion was missing last season under Pete Carroll.
The Raiders hired Carroll after Ben Johnson chose Chicago and the opportunity to coach Caleb Williams. But the organization’s desire to build prudently, with the long view in mind, clashed with Carroll’s urgency to win immediately.
“Pete was operating out of a completely different playbook,” a league source said. “And that was obvious very early on.”
Davis did not single out Carroll when discussing previous coaching changes. But he acknowledged that optimism at the outset does not guarantee the right partnership.
“I didn’t feel negatively about anybody, starting out,” Davis said of previous regimes over the years. “It just became very clear that it wasn’t the right fit or the right situation. And I wanted to make the changes quickly enough that it didn’t linger.”
Now?
“At this point, I’m very confident that we’ve got a long-term situation to work with,” Davis said.
The Raiders’ 3-3 record offers encouragement without allowing for a victory lap. Their losses to the Chiefs and Bills came by a combined six points, suggesting the distance between Las Vegas and two AFC measuring sticks is shrinking.
Closing that distance remains the assignment.
Davis believes his most important contribution now is allowing the people hired to do their jobs to actually do them.
“We got who we all believe are the right choices,” he said.
That requires resisting the temptation to turn every setback into a referendum on the entire operation. It also requires remembering that promising beginnings have come and gone before.
Davis has a familiar reminder for that.
“The least important thing in life is the score at halftime,” he said. “You got to finish the job.”
For a franchise that has spent much of three decades searching for a sustainable direction, the encouraging part is finally seeing one.
The next part is staying on it.
