Al Davis finally fired Lane Kiffin last night. Well, I am almost as shocked as I was; when I heard Tony Mandaritch admitted using steroids in college.
Look, everyone has known for years that Al Davis was crazy. However, his current conduct and his smear campaign against head coach Lane Kiffen, have really gone way over the line. In his whole crazy, incoherent and rambling press conference yesterday, he only spoke two lines that were not half-truths, or outright lies. The two lines were, "Today, I have fired Lane Kiffen, he is no longer the coach of the Raiders." Also, "I didn't hire the person I thought I hired."
To me, that second line was the key line, in the spectacle that was yesterday's press conference. Al thought he had hired a young impressionable kid that he could control, a yes man. He thought Coach Kiffen would be just thrilled to make 2 million per/yr at his age and would say, "Yes, Sir!" every time Al put one of his ridiculous decisions in play. However, Al hired a young man with a backbone. Who, come hell or high water was going to do the right thing by his team. Heaven forbid!
Now we have a ticked off and crazy Al on the warpath(hey that's kind of catchy "Crazy Al" I'm calling him Crazy Al from now on!) So, Crazy Al is on the warpath. That punk who he hired to run the team actually thinks he's gonna run the team. What is Crazy Al to do? Does he fire him? No, why you ask? Easy, if Crasy Al fired Coach Kiffen he would have to do two things he didn't want to do. First, he would be admitting he made a mistake. Second, he would have to pay the remainder of Kiffen's salary.
What did Crazy Al do? Everything he accused Coach Kiffen of in his press conference. He lied, he leeked false stories to the media, and at the press conference produced a letter from himself to the Coach. A letter which the Coach most likely never saw. Why didn't he see it? I'm guessing because it was written yesterday morning. Not two weeks ago as Crazy Al claimed.
Why did Crazy Al do all this? So he could fire Coach Kiffen "with cause." That way, Crazy Al could get out of paying the Coach the money owed to him. He would still have to admit he made a mistake, but that was a pill Crazy Al could swallow far more easily, when covered in 2 million dollar candy coating (which is the approximate sum of money he saves by not paying Kiffen this year.)
Roger Goodell are you watching this? It is your duty to do what is best for the league. At this point that means Crazy Al must go! I'll grant you it wouldn't look good to do it now. However, start queitly putting together packages from buyers and let Crazy Al take a buyout at the end of the season. He's getting up there now, he can use the "for health reasons" excuse, it's tried and true. Then maybe, just maybe, the Raiders can get back to what they were about before Crazy Al went completely nuts; "Just Win Baby!"
That's my slightly obstructed view.
Thanks for reading.
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