Shell still supports assistant Walsh

Even as his team sets new standards for futility with each passing week, Raiders coach Art Shell remains steadfast in his support of offensive coordinator Tom Walsh.

Unlike Arizona, Baltimore and Cleveland -- all three of which made midseason changes and fired their offensive coordinators -- Oakland has no intentions of dumping Walsh despite being ranked last in eight of 12 pertinent offensive categories.

“There’s so much involved in why the offense doesn’t work,” Shell said. “There’s so much involved that people can’t see or people don’t understand.... I really don’t have to defend Tom because I feel worse than he does when we don’t succeed offensively.”

The Raiders (2-6) are coming off one of their worst performances of the season, a 16-0 loss to Seattle in which Oakland failed to produce an offensive touchdown for the fifth time in eight games.

Second-year quarterback Andrew Walter was sacked a season-high nine times by the Seahawks and has been sacked a league-leading 37 times overall this season.

The heaviest criticisms have been leveled at Walsh, the one-time mayor of Swan Valley, Idaho, who was running a bed and breakfast inn when Shell phoned and asked him to return to the NFL.

Walsh hasn’t spoken with the media since a brief 20-minute interview during the preseason, leaving Shell to answer questions about the Raiders’ struggling offense, an offense that has left many -- including several Oakland players -- scratching their heads in bewilderment.

That was the case following Monday’s loss to Seattle when the Raiders ran the ball just six times in the first half and 13 times overall despite trailing by less than two touchdowns most of the game.

Running back LaMont Jordan said he was stunned by the Raiders’ reluctance to run the ball. Jordan, who rushed for 1,025 yards and was second on the team with 70 receptions, has seen his numbers fall off dramatically this year.

Hindered by a sore back that sidelined him for one game and limited his playing time in two others, Jordan has gained just 398 yards rushing with just one touchdown while he has caught just eight passes for 49 yards.

“Around here it is going to be what it is going to be,” Jordan said Thursday. “I think the best thing for me to do is just keep my mouth shut and show up for work every day and go out and do my job on Sunday.”

Shell, too, acknowledged the Raiders’ need to run the ball more often, the closest he has come to criticizing the play-calling of Walsh.

“We should have run the ball more,” Shell said earlier this week. “We got away from it and we shouldn’t have. There’s no doubt about it. When you drop back and pass as many times as we did you open yourself up to a lot of blitzes.”

A former assistant coach with the Raiders who was let go by the team after Shell was fired in 1994, Walsh was head coach for two seasons at Idaho State and worked as director of operations and coach of a minor league franchise in Mobile, Ala. He had been out of football since 1999 before getting the call to rejoin his longtime friend, Shell, in another go-round with the Raiders.

Rather than injecting life into Oakland’s offense, however, Walsh has been the architect of an offense that is on pace to score just 184 points this season, which would be the sixth-lowest total since the NFL went to a 16-game schedule in 1978.

“When the offense struggles I take it harder than Tom, and Tom takes it very hard when we don’t do things,” Shell said. “We’re doing some things that are right. It’s not all wrong.”