Former Oakland Raiders coach Hue Jackson said Wednesday in an ESPN Radio interview that he regrets ripping his team in a Week 17 postgame news conference, and believes he might have remained as coach if the late Al Davis still owned the team.
Jackson, who was fired Tuesday after just one season, said in an interview with ESPN Radio's "Hill & Schlereth" that he should have taken a shower and given himself time to cool off before addressing the media Jan. 1 after the Raiders lost to the San Diego Chargers.
Instead, he held his news conference shortly after blasting his team in the locker room, as the Raiders marked their ninth straight season without a winning record or a playoff berth. Jackson made headlines for saying he was "pissed" at his players and chastising them publicly after they missed an opportunity to make the playoffs.
"I think probably the emotions were still pretty raw after talking to the team," he said. "I kind of went in there and said some things that I was saying to the team that maybe didn't need to be said outside the locker room.
"So lesson learned by me. I know what I said, I know what I meant. I don't think I meant it the way that everybody took it."
He said he believes it was Raiders owner Mark Davis, Al's son, who made the call to fire him. But Jackson said he holds no ill will, and believes new general manager Reggie McKenzie and Davis will "do great" going forward.
"I think it's Mark's team," he said, when asked why he believes it was the owner's decision. "When it's all said or done, it really doesn't matter whether it was Mark or Reggie. At the end of the day, it was the Raiders organization that made a decision to move in a different direction."
He does believe, however, that there's a good chance he still would have been the team's coach if Al Davis had not died in October.
"I feel like if that was the case that maybe I'd have the opportunity to still be there," Jackson said.
Jackson also talked to the NFL Network and NFL.com on Wednesday, and denied trying to make a power grab after Davis' death.
"Sometimes people can take things and run with them," Jackson told NFL.com. "I've seen so many things said about me being power hungry, that I want to be the GM. I've never said that. I don't know many coaches in the National Football League that don't want input on his team, his coaching staff or how to go about conducting practice."
Jackson helped to engineer the trade with the Cincinnati Bengals for quarterback Carson Palmer after starter Jason Campbell broke his collarbone. The trade cost the Raiders a 2012 first-round draft pick and a conditional 2013 second-rounder.
While Palmer showed signs of giving the Raiders a big-time quarterback, he was unable to get Oakland to the playoffs, raising questions about how effective that trade was.
Jackson, however, said he believes Palmer will be successful and will benefit from taking part in the Raiders' offseason program. When he was traded to Oakland, he was in the midst of a season-long holdout and hadn't worked out at all with the Bengals.
"I think Carson's going to have a tremendous career going forward," Jackson said.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.