Mr. Al Davis, on the other phone?
Two-time, 2nd place finisher for the Heisman Trophy. SPEED-n-SIZE.
321 yards rushing vs. South Carolina, November 2007.
Two weeks after putting up 321 yards vs. South Carolina, leads team to a 50-48 Triple Overtime Win vs. #1 ranked LSU - 206 yards rushing, 3 touchdowns, plus 1 touchdown pass.
Retired DL Warren Sapp endorsed the selection of Arkansas RB Darren McFadden by the Oakland Raiders. "I love Darren McFadden to the Raiders," Sapp said Monday, April 28. "I think it's a perfect fit… I understand that (coach) Lane Kiffin and (offensive coordinator) Greg Knapp are supposed to be these guys who make their living by throwing the ball," Sapp added. "But our offense is made for downhill guys. And this kid will make that offense go."McFadden believes he can combine with last year's number one pick, quarterback JaMarcus Russell, to drive a new young Raiders offence. "Two young guys in the backfield, a guy like JaMarcus Russell and me, it will be a great thing back there," he said. "Both of us, coming out of the SEC (Southeastern Conference), we've played against good teams. "And it's something that we want to carry over to the NFL so I feel we can be a great asset for them."
| Sep 8 - vs. Denver, 10:15 PM ET |
| Sep 14 - at Kansas City, 1:00 PM ET |
| Sep 21 - at Buffalo, 1:00 PM ET |
| Sep 28 - vs. San Diego, 4:05 PM ET |
Oct 5 - Open |
| Oct 12 - at New Orleans, 1:00 PM ET |
| Oct 19 - vs. NY Jets, 4:15 PM ET |
| Oct 26 - at Baltimore, 1:00 PM ET |
| Nov 2 - vs. Atlanta, 4:15 PM ET |
Nov 9 - vs. Carolina, 4:05 PM ET |
| Nov 16 - at Miami, 1:00 PM ET |
| Nov 23 - at Denver, 4:05 PM ET |
| Nov 30 - vs. Kansas City, 4:15 PM ET |
Dec 4 - at San Diego, 8:15 PM ET |
| Dec 14 - vs. New England, 4:15 PM ET |
| Dec 21 - vs. Houston, 4:05 PM ET |
| Dec 28 - at Tampa Bay, 1:00 PM ET |
For a long time, Jarrod Cooper wouldn't tell anyone at the Oakland Animal Shelter what he did for a living. He wasn't there as an NFL player, as the anti-Michael Vick. He had a pretty good idea that if the league wanted someone to do spin control, he wouldn't be the first choice for the job.
The Raiders had started their season without Cooper, while he served a four-game suspension for a positive steroid test. He doubted that he would return the field. It would be so easy to write off a special-teams player, even a great one, if his name was linked to any type of scandal.
He needed something to fill his time, to distract him from the disturbing thoughts that filled his head and to begin building a future without football. So he arrived at the shelter like any other volunteer. The staff members didn't ask too many questions about the heavily muscled young man with elaborate tattoos, but they did find him intriguing.
"He'd drive up in this nice car. He had all this time," volunteer coordinator Megan Webb said, laughing. "We had no idea."
Cooper returned to the Raiders, and everyone at the shelter figured out who he was late in the season, when he got hurt and arrived to volunteer on crutches. By then, he was hooked on the place. He had become the perfect antidote to Vick and his sadistic dogfighting ring - a pro athlete who owned big dogs and, more and more every day, devoted the fierce intensity cultivated by football to the cause of protecting animals.
"When I first came here, I'd see a mean dog, I'd say what's wrong with that dog? And now if I would see a mean dog, I think, 'Who did that to this animal?' " he said. "The dogs only do what you train them to do."
Almost on cue, a roaming cat jumped into Cooper's lap as he began the interview. The two-hour visit dispelled any suspicions that he volunteers here for show, as perfunctory public service. He and Webb bantered constantly about various animals, from the puppy that had been thrown against a wall to Rambo, a dog that had arrived months earlier with a mile-long disobedient streak and, after a committed effort by everyone at the shelter, had been adopted out the day before with a reformed attitude and a new name, Riley.
Cooper brought out his digital camera to find a picture of Riley. As he clicked from frame to frame, he passed pictures of a huge red sore on a dog's shin and of himself planting his handprint in newly poured concrete in the shelter's backyard. Cooper is financing the construction of outdoor kennels so that the dogs can spend time in fresh air and sunshine without having to wait for volunteers to take them out individually.
Later, Cooper peeled away from a tour of the facilities with a Chronicle photographer and reporter so that he could "take care of Bob," a man waiting for him in the lobby. Webb explained that Bob was the concrete guy. "Jarrod has to write him a check," she said.
He also is underwriting a workshop this month on how to identify and cultivate task-oriented dogs that are too hyperactive to be house pets but often make perfect worker animals, performing search-and-rescue duties or herding cattle. Experts from Texas are flying here to lead the discussion.
Yet Cooper's checkbook, Webb insists, isn't half as active as he is. He cleared out the back area before construction started on the kennels, and he put hours into cleaning up a barn by Lake Merritt, which the shelter owns but can't use to full advantage. His girlfriend, Erica Arana, said she barely saw him some days because he'd go to physical therapy in the morning, then spend the afternoon and evening at the shelter, sometimes returning home as late as 8 p.m.
"People save the animals, and the animals save people," he said, "and once you see that and experience it, you're stuck here. I'm stuck now."
Cooper ranks second among the volunteers in terms of hours served, Webb said, bringing out the football player's competitive side.
"Really No. 1," he said, flashing an impish smile at Webb. "Martha doesn't count anymore. She works here now."
As a college student, Cooper wanted to train for veterinary school, but the workload didn't fit with his football schedule. He now is certain that his future outside sports will be devoted to animal welfare. Working with Bad Rap, a nonprofit that promotes proper treatment of pit bulls, he has committed himself to helping pet owners understand and fulfill their responsibilities. He started an organization called Code 597, named for the California penal code against cruelty to animals, and recruited seven other Raiders to help, including Nnamdi Asomugha and Justin Fargas.
"I always use myself as an example. When I was growing up, I thought it was OK to chain your dog up and then go to work or go to school. I'd be gone from 7 to 5 at night because I had track practice," he said "You don't think about it. Your dog knocks over his food or his water. He's sitting there for 12 hours without any water. That's not how you take care of your animal."
Code 597 will help equip owners with better restraining devices, perhaps a crate or a dog run, plus neutering services or microchips that help locate lost animals. Cooper owns two Presa Canarios, Kaine and Kristo, huge dogs that, under the wrong supervision, can become very dangerous. Cooper initially thought about breeding them for profit; within in a week of volunteering at the shelter, he said, he had them fixed.
"I think I wanted to get the big dogs for a macho thing," Cooper said. "That's not a very educated reason to get a big dog. ... Thank God it got corrected by volunteering here. It probably saved me and my dogs."
The shelter work acted like therapy, Cooper said, during his suspension. He had been in trouble before, getting jailed and suspended after two DUI arrests and generally failing to ground himself. After he started volunteering, "you could really see a difference in him," said Arana, who began dating him two years ago. "It was like he'd found his place."
He likes to compare himself to a cartoon character. "You know when the Grinch had a small heart, and then his heart grew big?" he said. "You do lose your way once you're in the NFL for a while. Your sense of reality starts to get a little skewed."
"You're in another world," Arana interjected.
"Yea," he said, "you are. And this place just kind of put me back in the real world. Helping people, it just kind of opened me up, made me have maybe a little more feelings. Kind of the Grinch syndrome."
In light of Vick's guilty plea, the NFL probably could use a little Dr. Seuss in its game. Cooper hopes to take Code 597 to league headquarters someday and advance the cause throughout the league. But he's in no hurry. He wants to make things work here first, be sure that the program serves pets and their owners before it becomes an NFL enterprise. Anything less would be a show, and when Cooper doesn't want to be on stage. He's stuck in another world, and he really likes it there.
According to a team source, Kiffin was told by a third party not affiliated with the club that Lofton was coming aboard.
Kiffin met with Lofton on Monday after his return from Mobile, Ala., in an interview session senior executive John Herrera described as "excellent."
Herrera said Wednesday there were no announcements regarding team business. The Raiders seldom make announcements until contracts are actually signed.
According to the team source, who preferred to remain anonymous, Kiffin neither extended a job offer to Lofton nor was he ever told by Al Davis or anyone in the front office an offer had been made.
Except for Senior Bowl business, Kiffin has declined comment on any matters pertaining to the Raiders that have transpired since the end of the regular season. Kiffin could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.
Rumors were rampant at the Senior Bowl that Kiffin was asked to resign by Davis and that his authority on personnel and coaching staff hires had been stripped, reports Herrera said were false.
Lofton's most likely position is wide receivers coach, which was filled last season by Charles Coe. Coe, 58, came to the Raiders in 2007 from Alabama State, where he had been head coach.
Following the regular season Lofton was unexpectedly fired by Chargers coach Norv Turner. He interviewed for the head coaching job with the Raiders twice — once when Art Shell was hired and again when Kiffin came aboard. Hiring Lofton without Kiffin's knowledge is significant in that Davis gave the 32-year-old coach the latitude to remake the entire offensive staff after Oakland scored just 12 touchdowns on offense in 16 games the previous season. Following a 2-14 season, not a single offensive staff member remained, with Kiffin hiring an entirely new staff with Davis' final approval.
Al Davis has gotten away with it because of his obvious ties to that side of things. But in recent years, his moves have all been scattershot — emotionally and monetarily driven.
You hire people to do a job, and you hold them to a high standard. They'll be fired, if they don't do the job.
So let them do that job.
Unfortunately with the Raiders, a coach or general manager is never going to get that opportunity.
Watching how the Super Bowl is being covered this week, I find something to be very telling regarding how the Raiders organization is perceived.
Randy Moss is the central star in Super Bowl XLII. Based on what he's doing this year, you'd think there would be an awful lot of conversation over what a dog he was last year.
Yet there's very little. What's that tell you? It tells you the national opinion was the Raiders had as much to do with Moss' lack of productivity as he did.
The Raiders are seen at this dysfunctional family, and it starts at the top.
As long as Al Davis continues to mettle — unless you get a truly independent guy like Bill Parcells, who's not going to pick up the phone when Al calls — I really don't think it matters who the next coach of the Raiders is.
The Raiders are like a home with foundation
Al Davis is flood damage.
Ideally, he would recognize that the game, to a degree, has passed him by. It's a young man's sport all the way through — from the personnel side to the coaching side to the players. You need an incredible amount of energy and passion.
At his age, anybody could question if he has the energy to tackle what this is — one of the league's biggest rebuilding projects.
But for Al Davis, this is his life. The Raiders are Al Davis. So any discussion of him taking a hands-off approach is pie in the sky. It's not going to happen.
There is no master plan. One year they're thinking super-short-term with Randy Moss. The next they're thinking super-long-term with JaMarcus Russell. It's a circus surrounding the decision-making core, and it doesn't seem like it's going to get any better anytime soon.
Even the biggest of optimists couldn't look at this and say: They're on the right path. Obviously, they're not.
Williams, 27, was a third-round draft pick of the Raiders in 2003. He began last season as a starter but lost his job to Robert Thomas after a shoulder injury.
Also, strength and conditioning coach Jeff Fish accepted a job with Atlanta.
The Raiders did not issue a release on either move. Williams, who attended Clayton Valley High School and Fresno State, couldn't be reached for comment.
Bills: Buffalo signed free agent tight end Teyo Johnson. The four-year veteran out of Stanford has appeared in 30 NFL games and has 26 catches for 288 yards. He was in Denver's training camp in 2007, but after an injury late in the preseason, was waived by the Broncos. A second-round draft pick of the Raiders in 2003, Johnson has also spent time with Arizona and Miami.
There has been a lot of talk of change on the Oakland Raiders' coaching staff.
More talking is set for today.
Hall of Fame receiver and recently fired Chargers wide receivers coach James Lofton is scheduled to interview with the Raiders for an unspecified coaching position.
Considering Lofton, a Raider in 1987-88, was a candidate for the head coaching job the past two times the Raiders had an opening, it is unclear what role he would serve if hired. Charles Coe is the receivers coach.
Last week, news broke of the Oakland Raiders possibly dismissing Lane Kiffin. The media reaction ranged from shock to humor. But such a move would hardly be surprising to those who have experienced life as a Raider. We understand that loyalty is not only expected, but also demanded from owner Al Davis.
As a former player for the Raiders, I have seen how that loyalty is rewarded. Willie Brown, Jim Otto and George Atkinson are a few of the former Raider greats who continue to have ties with the organization. Moreover, there are countless others who have spent decades working for the organization without the benefit of a written contract.
Lane Kiffin may have underestimated the significance of loyalty when he (or an associate close to him) reportedly inquired about the Arkansas and UCLA jobs near the end of the season. His alleged pursuit of those jobs would be seen as the ultimate act of disloyalty by Davis.
In naming Kiffin the head coach just a year ago, Davis took a chance on an "up-and-coming" college assistant who had limited experience as a coordinator and was not considered a prime candidate for a head coaching job on any level. But Davis has always been a risk taker when it comes to running his football team.
He hired John Madden at the age of 32. Tom Flores became the first minority to win a Super Bowl, also under Davis's guidance, and the Raiders have the highest-ranking woman in league circles, chief operating officer Amy Trask. Davis clearly has a long history of granting unconventional candidates opportunities to lead, but he expects to be rewarded for his acts with loyalty and respect.
Kiffin's alleged pursuits of the aforementioned jobs violated this order, and his rumored attempt to dismiss several staff members without Davis' consent would be another sign of disrespect.
Despite those acts, the decision to jettison Kiffin after one season would be difficult. Kiffin, who led the Raiders to a 4-12 record, appeared to have the team headed in the right direction. His squad was competitive (seven losses by seven points or fewer), organized and played with an energy that hadn't been seen in Oakland in the past two seasons.
Offensively, Kiffin fixed the leaky O-line and orchestrated an attack that ranked sixth in the league in rushing offense. With JaMarcus Russell slated to start in 2008, the Raiders could be a prolific unit. Oakland also has the personnel in place to field a top ten defense for years to come. Thus, the dismissal of Kiffin would squash a lot of the positive buzz that is building around the franchise.
Regardless of how this saga eventually unfolds, Davis' demand for loyalty will not change and those who represent the Raiders must realize that.
As a young, first-time head coach, Kiffin was so eager for the job that he took Davis' word on his responsibilities, and did not get them in writing, a mistake that former Raiders coaches could have warned him about.
Even Kiffin's predecessor, Art Shell, a long-time Davis favorite, was spared further indignity after he was fired because his contract language protected him. Davis wanted Shell to work out his contract as the team's offensive line coach, but language in Shell's contract specifically outlined his duties as the head coach.
Now, Davis is trying to avoid paying off Kiffin, so he is trying to make his coach so miserable that he will quit after just one season. Although published reports say Kiffin has two years at $2 million a year remaining on his contract, a team source with knowledge of the contract said there is only one year remaining at $1.7 million. The third year of the deal is at the team's option and is not guaranteed.
"Al never has signed a new coach to a (guaranteed) three-year deal," the source said. "Even Jon Gruden had a two-year contract at first; then he got a three-year deal the next time."
In the latest volley, Davis essentially has ostracized Kiffin from all meetings and planning sessions having to do with Raiders personnel, and has refused to allow Kiffin to decide the makeup of his coaching staff. Kiffin thought he had some of those responsibilities when he was hired, but they were not included in the contract.
The Raiders' source said, simply, "Al doesn't do that."
Although the bomb that set the most recent developments in motion was Kiffin's attempt to fire defensive coordinator Rob Ryan, Kiffin and Davis began clashing on staff makeup a year ago over a contract for Mark Jackson, Kiffin's top administrative aide.
Jackson got neither the money nor the length of agreement that Kiffin thought Davis had agreed to. By mid-season, Davis essentially had Jackson moved out of his office in the personnel department and rendered him a non-person.
On draft day, as has been reported, Kiffin stood up to Davis and convinced him to trade Randy Moss, who had done nothing in two years with Oakland. Kiffin also was lukewarm on top draft pick JaMarcus Russell, a quarterback Kiffin did not believe fit his offensive style.
When Russell didn't play until late in the season and then played poorly, Davis blamed Kiffin, although Davis had been warned before drafting Russell to expect a protracted contract negotiation that would inhibit Russell's progress. That's exactly what happened, and Russell missed all of training camp.
In season-ending meetings with his staff, Kiffin fired Ryan, whose defense slid from No. 3 in the NFL, based on yards allowed, in 2006, to No. 22 in 2007. Ryan went to Davis to thank him for the time he spent in Oakland and Davis blew up, telling Ryan that Kiffin had no authority to fire him. As a result, Ryan remains on the staff.
Kiffin also wanted to fire about five other assistant coaches whom he had hired. Davis refused to allow that to happen because he did not want to pay off the year all of them had remaining on their contracts.
Davis became further enraged during the playoffs when Norv Turner, the Oakland coach in 2004-05, took San Diego to the AFC Championship Game and Moss helped New England reach the Super Bowl.
Now, apparently Davis has reached out to former Vikings and Cardinals coach Dennis Green as a replacement whenever Kiffin either resigns or is fired. It's difficult to see how that pairing would work, either, because Green both is independent-minded and has a resume that means he wouldn't come cheap, always a requirement for a Davis coach.
Green presumably also would want to put his own staff together, something that was at the crux of the battle between Davis and Kiffin.
Oakland has not had a winning season since Bill Callahan succeeded Gruden for the 2002 season and led the team to the Super Bowl. Callahan was fired a year later after going 4-12. Over the last five seasons, the Raiders have had a record as good as 5-11 only once, and their overall record, 19-61, is by far the worst in the NFL.
Kiffin was the team's fourth coach since Gruden, following Callahan, Turner and Shell. The Raiders have had seven coaches since returning from Los Angeles to Oakland for the 1995 season, and only Gruden lasted longer than two years.
by Tim Kawakami
Straight out of today’s paper (I think–I haven’t double-checked so maybe I was whacked out of there, too; I know it wasn’t on the website that I could see)… Plus one quick add-on:
Hey, Lane Kiffin wants to remain the Raiders coach. He says. Well, those are the words he says. Terrific!
Things have been said, columns have been written, the Raiders have erupted and we all know what the end result will be: Kiffin will cease to be the Raiders coach at some point in the next few weeks or months.
I mean, even Al Davis can’t keep a coach out of spite, can he?
I’ll go over these quick three things, which I’m doing I must admit because I’ve typed often for a long time now:
* Kiffin went 4-12. No Raider coach under Davis has ever been retained after winning fewer than 5 games. There’s a reason for this–any coach who can’t win games is letting the Big Man Down.
* At least one of our Bay Area franchises has switched coaches every year since the end of the 2001 season, and Kiffin would make it six straight years. (And three-for-the-last-three for AD.)
End of 2001: Jon Gruden traded by Raiders.
End of 2002: Steve Mariucci fired by 49ers.
End of 2003: Bill Callahan fired by Raiders.
End of 2004: Dennis Erickson fired by 49ers.
End of 2005: Norv Turner fired by Raiders.
End of 2006: Art Shell fired by Raiders.
End of 2007: Kiffin?
* Other than understanding that Kiffin did a decent job in 2007, I do have one thing to ask him, rhetorically:
-Lane, what did you expect? The only reason you got the Raiders job is because nobody else any good wanted it… So why were you going to be any different?
Chaos got Kiffin this job. Chaos will drive him out.
Now he’s a Lane Duck for the remainder of his Raiders career, whether its two days, two weeks or…
ESPN reported Friday that Raiders managing general partner Al Davis has asked Coach Lane Kiffin to resign after only one season because of philosophical differences.
The report added that Davis is looking at Dennis Green, former Minnesota Vikings and Arizona Cardinals coach, as a potential replacement.
The Raiders denied the report, with senior executive John Herrera calling it "a non-issue" and adding that Green "has already debunked the report."
Green told ESPN: "I haven't really talked to Al about any coaching job, but, really, how many times has my name been mentioned every time something goes on with the Raiders?"
Kiffin, who is in Mobile, Ala., to coach in today's Senior Bowl, told reporters that he didn't want to talk about recent developments.
"I'm not going to comment on anything that has transpired in the past three weeks," he said.
The relationship between owner and coach began to deteriorate earlier this month with Kiffin's insistence that defensive coordinator Rob Ryan be fired. Davis balked at such a move, according to people in the Raiders' front office.
Earlier this week, Ryan and Kiffin downplayed any rift and said their relationship is fine.
Once Davis blocked Kiffin's proposed firing of Ryan, Kiffin reportedly told Davis to fire him if he wasn't going to have autonomy over which coaches to hire and fire.
Davis responded by asking Kiffin to resign, according to the ESPN report, and even gave
Kiffin reportedly refused. He is due approximately $4 million over the next two years.
Kiffin was allowed the freedom to hire new offensive coaches upon his arrival. Ryan and most of the defensive staff were under contract and retained.
Several reports said Davis stripped Kiffin of any authority over personnel and coaching moves, prohibited him from participating in meetings concerning free agency and the NFL draft and ordered him to clear any organizational decisions with Davis.
"It's all absolutely ridiculous, beyond belief," Herrera said. "Those stories are fraudulent. Everything is inaccurate. It's unconscionable. (The writers) should be held accountable. We're (angry) around here."
Kiffin, 32, was hired to replace the fired Art Shell a little more than a year ago. The Raiders improved to 4-12 under Kiffin and showed signs of emerging from a five-year funk that has resulted in a league-worst 19-61 record.
• The Raiders are slated to interview former receiver James Lofton on Monday. He was fired by the San Diego Chargers earlier this week after six years as their wide-receivers coach.
Lofton has interviewed with Davis twice for the team's coaching vacancy. Davis settled upon Shell and Kiffin, respectively. It is unclear what position Lofton is interviewing for this time.
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.
He admitted he has "a lot of homework," and study hall begins this weekend.
Raiders coach Lane Kiffin and his staff will head to Mobile, Ala., for the Jan. 26 Senior Bowl. Kiffin will coach a North team that will feature seven USC players that he knows well from his time with the Trojans.
Kiffin's Senior Bowl experience will give him a head start on the scouting process, he hopes, after not being able to follow the college game during the season.
"What is neat is that a number of these names that will come out, I will have had background with them and know their families through recruiting," Kiffin said at the end of the Raiders' season in December. "Know who they are and the type of competitors they are, stuff that you have to research and find, so that helps a little bit."
Kiffin, who was USC's offensive coordinator before the Raiders hired him, obviously knows Trojans players best. But whomever he watches, it's with an eye toward filling some big holes.
Defensive tackle Sedrick Ellis would help the Raiders fill the void left by Warren Sapp's retirement.
Of the USC contingent, Ellis is the only projected top-10 pick. Pending a coin flip with Atlanta, the Raiders will select third or fourth in the first round of the NFL draft.
Offensive tackle Sam Baker is an All-American with experience in the Raiders' blocking scheme.
With left tackle Barry Sims going into his 10th season, a trade down for Baker in the draft could make sense in the first round.
Defensive end Lawrence Jackson would add depth and the potential of being another pass rusher.
Quarterback John David Booty, tight end Fred Davis, offensive lineman Drew Radovich, linebacker Keith Rivers and running back Chauncey Washington are the other USC players selected to play in the game.
Kiffin will have at his disposal other players with whom he is familiar because of his Pacific-10 Conference ties.
Cal will send wide receiver Lavelle Hawkins, running back Justin Forsett and safety Thomas DeCoud to the game. If Kiffin likes Hawkins, he can always ask quarterback JaMarcus Russell about him.
Hawkins went to LSU as a freshman before transferring and finishing his college career at Cal.
No more rumors, please
There hasn't been much made of the Raiders' defensive coordinator situation the last two weeks.
And the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ended any far-fetched dreams of a Kiffin family reunion in Oakland.
The team signed Lane's father, defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, to an extension Friday.
Monte Kiffin, whose defenses have ranked in the top 10 in 10 of the last 11 seasons, had been rumored to replace Rob Ryan with the Raiders.
Ryan, however, was not fired by the Raiders and will coach at the Senior Bowl.
Resurfacing
The Raiders re-signed running back Adimchinobe Echemandu. He was a standout in training camp last summer after joining the Raiders in 2006 as a practice-squad player.
He was cut by the Raiders to make room for running back Dominic Rhodes after he served a four-game suspension for violating the league's substance abuse policy.
Echemandu signed with Houston after the Raiders let him go but was cut before the season finale.
