Raiders promote Hue Jackson to HC after offensive success

The Oakland Raiders promoted offensive coordinator Hue Jackson to head coach Monday after he helped the team more than double its scoring output in his first year with the franchise.

Jackson will be formally introduced at a 4:15 p.m. ET news conference Tuesday -- two weeks after the Raiders announced they weren't picking up a contract option to keep coach Tom Cable.

"The fire in Hue will set a flame that will burn for a long time in the hearts and minds of the Raider football team and the Raider Nation," team owner Al Davis said in a statement.

Jackson was widely considered the leading contender to land the job as soon as the Raiders announced Cable's departure. This is Jackson's first head-coaching job at any level.

Jackson was hired a year ago to take over the play-calling duties from Cable and oversaw a transformation on offense. Oakland scored more than twice as many points in 2010 as it did in '09 -- and the Raiders won eight games to avoid an eighth consecutive losing season.

Led by quarterback Jason Campbell, a breakout season from running back Darren McFadden and big plays from rookie wide receiver Jacoby Ford, the Raiders finished sixth in the NFL in scoring with 410 points. That was the sixth-most points scored in a season in franchise history.

"That's why I came to the Raiders, was to improve, but we didn't improve fast enough," Jackson said late in the season. "... We expect to be challenging for the playoffs, challenging for our division year in and year out, and we're not getting that done, so to me, that's a disappointment. There's either first place or there's last place, and there's no in between."

That was a far different tone than the one expressed by Cable, who notably pronounced "you can't call us losers anymore," after the Raiders capped the 8-8 campaign by beating the AFC West champion Kansas City Chiefs in the season finale.

The Raiders won all six division games, but just two of their other 10. They became the first team since the 1970 NFL-AFL merger to have a perfect record in its division and not make the playoffs.