Raiders officially announce addition of four coaches

Originally published on Silver & Black Report on Feb. 6, 2014

The Raiders officially announced the addition of four new coaches to their coaching staff on Thursday.

The Raiders have hired Joe Woods as defensive backs coach, Marcus Robertson as assistant defensive backs coach, Chris Beniol as assistant special teams coach, and Vernon Stephens as assistant strength and conditioning coach.

Woods joins the Raiders after spending the last eight years with the Minnesota Vikings, as I talked about earlier this week here.

His full coaching history can be seen below.

Years                   College/Pro Team                             Position Coached

1992                            Muskingum                                      College Assistant
1993                            Eastern Michigan                           Graduate Assistant
1994                            Northwestern State                        Inside Linebackers
1994-96                     Grand Valley State                         Defensive Backs
1997                            Kent State                                          Defensive Backs
2001-03                     Western Michigan                           Defensive Backs
2004-05                     Tampa Bay Buccaneers                 Defensive Backs
2006-13                     Minnesota Vikings                           Defensive Backs

Robertson joins the Raiders having spent his last two seasons with the Detroit Lions. Like Woods, Robertson was ousted during a regime change with his former team, as I discussed here on Monday.

Here is Robertson's coaching history, having worked into the defensive backs coaching position after being assistant secondary coach on two different teams.

Years                     College/Pro Team                           Position Coached

2007-08                 Tennessee Titans                                 Assistant Secondary

2009-11                  Tennessee Titans                                 Secondary

2012                         Detroit Lions                                        Defensive Assistant/Secondary

2013                         Detroit Lions                                        Secondary

Beniol joins the Raiders after spending the last four seasons with the Dallas Cowboys as their assistant special teams coach.

Beniol, a former six-year NFL kicker, helped tutor Cowboys kicker Dan Bailey while he made 89/98 field goals since 2011. Bailey now has the second- and third-best single-season franchise marks for field goal percentage,  93.5 percent in 2012 and 93.3 percent in 2013. Bailey is also now second place in Cowboys history with his 89 field goals made and first on the all-time list with a 90.5 field goal percentage.

The Raiders may be hoping that Beniol can have the same success with Sebastian Janikowski who had a really rough 2013 campaign, making just 21/30 field goal attempts, only 70 percent.

Beniol's coaching history is as follows:

Years                     College/Pro Team                           Position Coached

2010-13                 Dallas Cowboys                                    Assistant Special Teams

Stephens spent the last six season with the San Diego Chargers as their assistant strength and conditioning coach. Before that, he worked with the University of Colorado after having interned with the Jacksonville Jaguars from 2002-2003.

Stephens full coaching history is listed below.

Years                     College/Pro Team                           Position Coached

1999-2002            North Florida                                      Head Strength and Conditioning

2002-03                 Jacksonville Jaguars                        Strength and Conditioning Intern

2003-06                 Colorado                                                Assistant Speed, Strength and Conditioning

2007-12                  San Diego Chargers                          Assistant Strength and Conditioning