Shell Seeks to Return to Raiders

Will Art Shell be back as head coach of the Raiders?

He wants to return for a seventh season, but he knows the decision is not his.

“I don’t worry about that,” he said. “There’s an evaluation process. I get evaluated just like everybody else. I get evaluated. I evaluate my staff. If there’s a need for a change here, then that’s out of my hands. I have no control over that, but I don’t worry about it.”

There has been speculation that owner Al Davis will make a change after a Raider team that Shell considered the best he has coached failed to qualify for the playoffs, losing in the regular-season finale Saturday to the Kansas City Chiefs. But there is also a feeling that Davis would not want to bring in a coach with whom he would not have the rapport and opportunity for input that he enjoys with Shell.

The Raider coach watched the Kansas City game film in agony on Christmas Eve, again on Christmas Day and again Monday.

It was a devastating finish to a promising season, but it didn’t dim Shell’s enthusiasm for his profession.

“I love this business,” he said. “I love this job. . . . I’ve grown every year I’ve been in the job. I believe I’m a better coach having gone through some of the experiences I’ve gone through. (I’ve) been at every level of the playoffs except the one big one, which is the Super Bowl. That’s my drive. That’s my dream, to be able to coach a team in one, win the doggone thing and move on. And that drive has not changed.”

While Shell said the Raiders will take a look at the free-agent market, he doesn’t want to lose any of the players he has.

“We’ll try to sign all of our guys,” he said. “We’ve always done that. There’s nobody on this team that we would not want back here.”