The Oakland Raiders announced Saturday evening they have hired Bobby April as special teams coordinator.
April is a two-time special teams coach of the year winning the award in 2004 and 2008, both while a member of the Buffalo Bills coaching staff. April was most recently with the Philadelphia Eagles on Andy Reid's staff for the past three seasons.
Oakland is April's seventh stop in the NFL in 21 seasons as an assistant coach.
This is a great hire. He was not given an opportunity to succeed in Philly. Andy Reid's last three years in Philly were a total CF. They let an All Pro kicker and highly competent punter get away. Yet, April still developed a Pro Bowl caliber kicker. They were signing practice squad players for special teams. Anyone who knows anything about football can see that the circumstances in Philly were awful and the failures there were not because of assistant coaches. Andy Reid will fail in KC. April will be great in Oakland, like he has been the rest of his career.
