If the latest flabbergasting fallout from the Raiders has even a grain of truth, a letter of resignation definitely should be drafted by the team on behalf of the franchise's long-suffering fans.
But it should be for Al Davis to sign - not Lane Kiffin - for the inexplicable, unconscionable mutilation of his own once-proud franchise. No stranger to strangeness, particularly in recent years, Davis may have thrown down the final gauntlet of incompetence that unmasks him as a pathetic patriarch clinging to the legend in his own mind.
Because Kiffin dares to have a vision of a respectable, unified football operation that strays from Omnipotent Al's warped world of secrecy, general stupidity and power-paranoid vanity, Davis apparently has mulled over the notion that "Lance" - the name he so feebly called Kiffin at his introductory press conference - may have to go.
In separate news accounts from ESPN's Chris Mortensen and the NFL Network's Adam Schefter - both citing sources close to Kiffin - Davis reportedly drafted a letter of resignation for his young coach to sign three weeks ago after the two clashed over the makeup of the coaching staff, specifically defensive coordinator Rob Ryan. Davis also was reportedly miffed regarding rumors that Kiffin may have been interested in the vacant Arkansas job.
According to the report, Kiffin refused to sign the resignation letter, because of compensation considerations to the three-year contract he signed
The Raiders, of course, are denying the reports, insisting that Kiffin is still the coach and that any rifts between him and Davis are minor. They dismiss a Mortensen assertion that Dennis Green is a candidate for Kiffin's job and assert that an interview scheduled with one-time head-coaching candidate James Lofton is merely for an assistant's position.
Sigh. Same old Raiders. Any sane person should be beyond trying to figure out how this will all shake out, but whether Kiffin stays or goes, this latest episode is another damning joke of the Raiders' own making. The mere fact that the smoke of organizational discontent has become a raging brush fire of leaks and speculation in the media speaks loudly to the wholly dysfunctional level the Raiders franchise has sunk.
In short, Davis has made a mess of things . . . again. Because he is irked that the 32-year-old Kiffin has acted immaturely on a variety of fronts - geez, how dare this punk want more control of his coaching staff after a 4-12 season - the owner is exercising a series of power plays to put his independent-minded coach in his place.
Kiffin clearly wanted Ryan out, so clearly that a story stating that Ryan was going to be fired and would be taking a similar position with the New York Jets stemmed from Ryan himself. Ryan confided in people that was going to be the case . . . and well, word got out. Probably a good bet Ryan wanted out, too.
But Davis reacted angrily to the Ryan stories and decided - totally disregarding performance or internal harmony - that he was in control and it wasn't going to happen. Kiffin went into a three-week silence as a result, which only added fuel to the farce.
Such shadowy in-fighting points out the inanity of how the Raiders operate under Davis. Volatile situations fester and leak into the public domain, and by the time the owner acts, he serves to make a bad situation worse. Without any doubt, the fractured state of the coaching staff - despite public hug-and-kiss statements from Kiffin and Ryan at the Senior Bowl, where the Raiders staff is presiding over one of the teams - makes it difficult to believe the progress the team made during the 2007 season can continue moving forward seamlessly.
It would be hilarious if it weren't so sad. Or if you're a Raiders fan, maddening. If Davis only comprehended just how stridently offended most Raiders fans have become by his five-year run of ineptitude - longer if you remove the years Jon Gruden temporarily resurrected the organization's credibility - he might be shocked into hands-off submission.
More and more fans by the week, many of them longtime supporters of the team, write Davis-derisive letters of discontent to this newspaper's columnists, beat writers and blogs. Many assert Davis has totally lost it, that he has trashed his own wondrous Hall of Fame legacy with a series of questionable actions that have piled up to an embarrassing level in recent years. Tough to argue against the evidence. Now we add this debacle.
Davis surely will shift blame to the "media mongers" he believes are out to get him, just as he so lamely blamed the Randy Moss trade on his coaches a few months back. Hey, Al's never to blame. The six coaches he has hired since 1995? Their fault, not his, that they couldn't measure up to The Greatness.
Look, a 4-year-old wouldn't be so gullible at this point.
There will always remain a core of Al loyalists/lackeys. But their numbers are dwindling, and if Kiffin winds up leaving over a silly dispute over control, the owner's credibility will shrivel to next to nothing, even among Raiders die-hards. It's already pretty close as it is. If anything, it's the die-hards who have become the most anti-Davis, because there is a consistent thread to every bad development that has happened with this franchise in recent years.
He sits in the owner's chair, and if he really is drafting resignation letters, perhaps it really is time for him to sign one of his own.
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