Raiders’ scouts have been expecting a shakeup

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Reggie McKenzie is out and Mike Mayock is in as G.M. of the Raiders, and the scouts have been expecting major changes — even before today’s strange story that the Raiders have sent their scouts home because they don’t know who they can trust not to leak sensitive information.

Michael Gehlken of the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that the Raiders’ scouts have anticipated for months that a shakeup in the scouting department will happen after the draft.

That’s not a big surprise. Head coach Jon Gruden is running the show, and he wants his own people handling scouting, not McKenzie’s people. By the time the Raiders hired Mayock, the college football season was already over and it wouldn’t have made sense to fire all the scouts who had spent all season watching games, but now that those scouts have done their work and there’s nothing left to scout, they’re out.

Gruden and Mayock will bring in their own staff of personnel people who will help shape the franchise in Las Vegas. The scouts who have been doing that work are getting an early exit from Oakland.