The Oakland Raiders have added two more assistants to the 2012 coaching staff, assistant special teams coach Keith Burns and linebackers coach Johnny Holland.
There were rumors last week that Holland had joined the Raiders’ coaching staff as the new linebackers coach and those rumors turned out to be true. The hire makes considerable sense knowing the history between Holland and head coach Dennis Allen as well as GM Reggie McKenzie.
Holland played at Texas A&M– Allen’s alma mater. He was then drafted in the second round by the Packers in 1987. Holland played seven seasons for the Packers, posting six straight seasons with at least 100 tackles before retiring in 1994. He was inducted into the Green Bay Packers’ Hall of Fame in 2001.
Holland began his coaching career as a defensive quality control coach for the Packers in 1995 — just a year after McKenzie joined the team’s front office. He was promoted to special teams coach in 1998, then linebackers coach in 1999. He was part of Mike Holmgren’s staff in Green Bay which led Packers to back-to-back NFC Championships following the 1996 and 1997 seasons and win Super Bowl XXXI.
He has coached in the NFL for 16 seasons, most recently as the linebackers coach for the Houston Texans for five years from 2006-10. He coached two AP Defensive Rookies of the Year during his time in Houston in DeMeco Ryans (2006) and Brian Cushing (2009).
Prior to joining the Texans, Holland spent three seasons with the Detroit Lions as defensive assistant (2003-04) and linebackers coach (2005).
Keith Burns, a veteran of 28 years in the collegiate coaching ranks, was the secondary coach at the University of Mississippi in 2011. Burns has coached on two occasions in Northern California, serving in various roles at UOP (1985-88) and at San Jose State (2004-09). He has been both an offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator at the collegiate level and served as head coach at Tulsa for three seasons from 2000-02.
Burns had previously been the secondary coach at Kansas State and defensive coordinator at Arkansas for two seasons (1998-99). Following the 1998 season at Arkansas, Burns was one of five finalists for the Frank Broyles Award, given annually to the nation’s top assistant coach. He was also defensive coordinator at USC for five seasons from 1993-97.
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