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Tony Sparano succeeds by limiting Raiders' playbook

Tony Sparano has always been a coach who likes to do things his way, so when he took over the interim job in Oakland, it was no surprise that things were going to change quickly.

The former Dolphins head coach installed training-camp style fundamental drills into Raiders practice and cut down on practice time in general.

Heading into a surprisingly inspiring loss to the Chargers, he also removed a large chunk of Oakland's playbook.

"Quite honestly, we just went back to the bye and said, 'What do we do well? Who does those things well? And let's put those people in positions to do them,'" Sparano said Monday. "Our menu was much shorter this week, on both sides of the ball, and the kids played faster and that was a positive."

While the loss did produce one of the funnier headlines we've seen all year -- "Raiders must avoid lull after competitive game" -- it did show that Sparano still has some tricks up his sleeve.

After his tenure in Miami ended and his brief stint as Jets offensive coordinator flamed out, Sparano has been waiting for an opportunity like this to come along.

We recap all the Week 6 action on a jaunty edition of the "Around The NFL Podcast." Find more Around The NFL content on NFL NOW.

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