Gary Peterson

Are you seeking adventure? Do you look good in black? (It’s slimming,  you know.) Do you enjoy coaching football, but find you are just about out of options? Would you do just about anything to get back in the game?

Do you enjoy the taste of a well-shined boot? Do you like the feel of a thumb pressed against your forehead? Can you grovel? Is salary no object? We may have the job for you. Contact the Oakland Raiders. Ask for Al Davis.

That’s Mr. Davis to you.

There you have it — the ideal candidate to succeed the fired Norv Turner as head coach of the Oakland Raiders.

Well, we say “succeed” ...

The Raiders job came open Tuesday for the third time in five years, and there’s a reason for that. Simply put, its very job description is a recipe for failure.

It’s a complex dynamic that almost defies description. Let’s see, there is the overbearing owner (Davis), who knows what he wants but no longer knows the game. There is the lack of institutional control, given that the players all recognize that the coach is little more than a camp counselor.

There is the taunting specter of the way things used to be, when the Raiders succeeded on their own terms, when Davis knew better than other NFL owners, and when Oakland was a haven for talented eccentrics of all manner and size. There is the depressing home field, with its unsold seats and blacked out games. There’s the unforgiving nature of the AFC West.

Mostly it’s the institutional control thing, which inevitably leads to the hire of coaches who have no experience and/or alternatives. So it was with Turner, a more-than-capable offensive coordinator with Dallas during the “How ‘bout them Cowboys!” years, then a less-than-inspiring head coach with the Washington Redskins.

NFL coaching carousel Parcells staying in Dallas 2 more years Eagles aide Childress hired by Vikings Jets give Chiefs OK to hire Edwards Celizic: K.C. blew it by losing Herm Commentary: Who'd want Raiders' job? Ventre: Some jobs need warning labels Opinion: Time right for more black coaches Saints to interview Jets' defensive chief Celizic: Sherman's exit means Favre gone Vote: Which opening is most desirable?

We could spend the next several hours dissecting the various whys and wherefores of Turner’s time in Oakland — the career-ending injury that felled Rich Gannon early in Turner’s first season; the addition and remarkable underuse of Randy Moss in Turner’s second season — but the bottom line is that he went 9-23 (the worst two-year record any single Raiders coach has ever produced), winning just one divisional game in the process.