Belief and trust: The ascension of new Raiders defensive coordinator Patrick Graham – The Athletic

The Y on Patrick Grahams Yale letterman jacket always begged the questions. Why would he try coaching? And once he finally did give it a shot, others would ask why he wasnt on Wall Street.

Charlie Weis often indelicately put that question to Graham, the Raiders new defensive coordinator, when he hired him as a graduate assistant at Notre Dame in 2007.

He got the tough treatment, the same that I got when I first got my shot, Weis, Notre Dames head coach from 2005 to 2009, said in a phone interview. I wanted to find out whether or not he could do it. It only took a few months to figure out he was going to be one of the good guys. He went to Yale, and he had not only smarts but football smarts. And if your first impression was that he was reserved and professorial, he was a grinder and he was never intimidated.

And he could really get on the players on the practice field. He looked like he was losing his mind at times, but the players all respected him.

Notre Dame was Grahams third stop, after a reluctant entry into the profession following his playing career at Yale. By then, Graham had fallen in love with being around a team and making players better. Now, he is in Las Vegas, where he has inherited an improved defense on a 10-7 team, and hes not wasting any time.

Graham knew what Maxx Crosby had been hearing, so he called his new defensive end right after taking the job as his coordinator last Friday.

The first thing he said was: Stop hearing all this noise about 3-4, 4-3 (alignments).

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Belief and trust: The ascension of new Raiders defensive coordinator Patrick Graham - The Athletic