Father Davis…like it or not!, Kiffin banished from the family!
September 30, 2008 by Lee Tremblay
Filed under NFL Football, Raiders
Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis ends the speculation and fires head coach Lane Kiffin.
After what ended up being quite the disfunctional marrage, Kiffin and Davis will part ways, and how they divy up the belongings will surly be dealt with in the court room.
Davis fired Kiffin for “cause”. Which means he breached his contract and said some things that he shouldn’t have said. Davis will no doubt try to not pay Kiffin for the almost two years remaining on his contract. All I can say to that, is good luck.
I have a lot of anger in place for Al Davis right now, and I believe that it is justified. I feel like a child of parents that are breaking up, and I am left out in the cold trying to figure out which parent I want to live with. I have been on the “keep Kiffin on” bandwagon for some time now, and it seems logical for me to side with him. However, after giving myself some time to think about the situation, I have come to a new conclusion.
They are BOTH at fault!
Before you question my judgement, hear me out.
Al Davis has always, and will always be the lead man for the Oakland Raiders. The president, the prime minister, the King and the Dad. He decides who coaches. He decides who gets drafted. He decides who gets axed, and who stays on. And he is the father of the Oakland Raiders.
WHO DOESN’T KNOW THAT???
Ken Weisenhunt was a lock to be the next Raiders head coach before the season two years ago, and the only reason why he didn’t take the job, was because he knew that Davis was in charge, and all decisions would go through him. Weisenhunt wanted total control, and that was not, nor will ever happen in Oakland, as long as Davis is alive.
Weisenhunt took the job in Arizona, and Davis fell back to his old head coach Art Shell. Why? Because Art Shell knew the deal. He knew that he wasn’t going to have control over the team, and he was ok with that. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a good enough coach, and he further hurt the progress of this team, before getting canned after his first year back.
Then came Lane Kiffin! A 31 year old past offensive coordinator of the USC Trojans. He is told that he can pick his coaches and have say in who is to be drafted, but the final decisions would be Al’s. He accepted those conditions, and became the youngest head coach ever named to the NFL. I truly believe that Kiffin thought that he could live by those rules.
He quickly found out that he couldn’t.
Al Davis let him pick his coaching staff and have his say in the draft. BUT the final decision was Davis’s and that is where the marrage started to get shaky.
Kiffin did not want to draft Jamarcus Russell. Davis did. Russell became a Raider.
Then we fast forward to the next offseason after a 4-12 season for the raiders, and Kiffin goes to Davis and asks him to have Rob Ryan Fired. Davis responds by telling him that Ryan will not be fired, and if he doesn’t like it, he should resign.
Kiffin stays on.
Before the 2008 draft, Kiffin comes out and states that Oakland doesn’t need another runningback, and they should concentrate on the offensive and defensive lines. Davis falls in love with runningback Darren McFadden. Darren McFadden becomes a Raider.
As of this point kiffin is fully awair that this is AL’S team, and if he wants to coach it, he had better coach the team that AL gives him.
So what does he do? He makes quick stabs at the decisions that Davis has made. He continues to poke the bear, and essentually gets HIMSELF fired.
Once again, hear me out!
Kiffin made this team better. Kiffin took what he was given and made the best of it. If Kiffin was given the control that he wanted, he may very well have made this team much much better, and at that, perhaps much much different. His ideas seemed great. His coaching ability seemed rock solid, but his inability to do what he was told, is what made him the wrong guy for the job in Oakland.
Let me clear that up. I truly feel that Kiffin being allowed to have the control of this team, would have made this team better, but Davis giving up that control simply would not have, and will not happen.
Kiffin found this out, and instead of taking what he was given, he made every attempt to get himself fired. It is because of this that Kiffin cannot be seen as an inocent bystander.
Kiffin thought that he would be able to come to Oakland and coach this team, in the style that Davis provides, and it didn’t take him long to find out that he was wrong. He wanted more, and he didn’t get more, and because of that, this marrage was bound to fail.
I truly believe that Lane Kiffin will find a job elsewhere and have a great deal of success. Whether it be in the NCAA at perhaps Syracuse, or with another NFL team. Mark my words, Kiffin will be back, and he will do very well.
I for one, wish him all the luck in the world, and would have loved to see what he could have done in Oakland, if given the chance. Not just by Davis, but by himself also, because I believe that he could have taken what Davis gave him, and made it work. He just chose not to.
Now we have to look at who will succeed Kiffin. Right now, Tom Cable is going to take over, and who knows, maybe he will be the answer.
What Oakland is going to need is someone that can take the style of play that Davis wants, with the types of players that Davis wants, and make it work. He will have to be someone that is confident enough to play by AL’s rules, and mold it into something that will work for him.
This will not be an easy person to find! This will be a team that will struggle until Davis is either gone, or he finds that perfect fit. But one thing is for sure, the way Davis runs his team WILL NEVER CHANGE!!!!!
I love Al Davis. I love his heart. I love his desire. I love his confidence in himself and his system. He has brought the team that I love to 3 superbowl wins, many division titles, and one of the best franchises in league history.
It is with that respect that I will find myself following him into whatever trouble he may lead me into. Whether it be a trip to LA, a firing of Kiffins and Shanahans, or a style of play that is outdated. He is, and will continue to be my leader. I may not agree with his rules. I may not agree with his choices. I may want to beat him with a lead pipe at times. But I will follow him, and I will support him, and if it’s not because of what he has done in the past, it will be because I have no other choice right now.
I am a child of the Raider Nation, and Al Davis is our father, and much like our birth parents, we don’t have the choice of who we get. So we learn to love them for who they are, and in time, we realize that they are going to make bad decisions, and mess things up as we go, but they are always looking out for our best interest, and they try everything in their power to help us succeed.
It is with this, that I cannot, and will not, jump ship.
So we keep on keeping on, and where that takes us…………
Tremblay
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September 30th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Al Davis is a shit stain on the NFL and society. The minute this man is off the face of the earth everyone including Raider nation will be better off!
October 1st, 2008 at 1:46 am
I guess you really don’t like Al Davis. I would have to wonder why, seeing that you are a Broncos fan, and Davis is not helping the Raiders win anything, due to the way he runs the Raiders. I would have guessed that you would be a big fan of Davis right now.
That said, I don’t disagree that the Raider nation would be better off without Davis, but to say that he is a “s%#t stain on the NFL and society” is pushing the envelope far too much.
Al Davis, love him or hate him, has been a very good and important part of the NFL and society, and although he does some stupid things, he also does some good ones, and to attack the man on a personal level, is just as bad as him attacking Kiffin.
With that said, I do believe that he has embellished some things, with regards to his statement yesterday, and that he is clearly trying to do his best to make the case that Kiffin breached his contract, but I don’t doubt that much of what he said is true, and that Kiffin did seal his own fate.
I guess that everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but maybe Davis is not the only one that has gone too far.
October 1st, 2008 at 6:11 am
I am not too sure that I agree with the ’stain’ comment. I do think however that the game has passed Davis by and he is starting to show a decline in his mental faculties. He is doing himself and the team a dis-service continuing on as the face of the franchise. His decisions in the last couple of years have been questionable at best and last night he came off as classless which is hopefully not the way he is remembered when he is gone from the game.
October 1st, 2008 at 8:20 am
Honestly Lee, he is driving this team into the ground. Fan or not, I am surprised you would stick behind a guy that is making your team the laughing stock of the NFL. Look no further than the Lions and what one fool can do to a team like Millen did. I have no problem sticking with allegiances because you like a team but there also comes a point where you have to step aside and think to yourself is this guy could for the organization? Just relate it to anyone who has a job in the business world. There are standards at every level in any job and Davis HAS NONE!!!!!!!!!
October 1st, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I love Al Davis, he’s great for the Raiders and once this blows over people will see that they are building a strong team in Oakland. Al’s no different than Jerry Jones. The guy owns the team and wants his say on the product he’s putting out on the field. Coaches come and go all the time so I don’t see it as a big deal, it just carried on in the media to long. There’s a lot of talented players on the Raiders and they will make an impact on that division for years to come. I don’t know where Zach gets off comparing him to Millen, you just can’t. Those guys don’t belong in the same sentence.
October 1st, 2008 at 2:20 pm
I could not agree with you more! Well said.
October 1st, 2008 at 2:27 pm
I dont really disagree with you, and I do feel that we would be better off without him (more then likely), I just simply have no other choice but to stick by him, because if I want to stay a fan of this team, I have to.
I also think that the game has passed him by, maybe not to a great degree, but enough to limit his ability to do as much as he wants to do. I would love it, if he could just stay the owner, but let his coach, and GM decide what happens, but that will not happen, so what else can we do.
We can’t fire him, so we are stuck with doing things his way.
As for his standards, I don’t really know which one of the two (Davis and Kiffin) that I think is doing the lying, but what Davis has said, makes a lot of sense, (although he is going about this in a totally awful way)
I have very mixed feelings right now.
October 1st, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I think that Davis is a great football mind, and he should be remembered for that, but what makes him hated, and not respected my many, is that he wants a large amount of control still. And I agree with you that he is building a very strong team and he is good for the organization, but it would make things a heak of a lot easier if he would just let his coach (whoever it will end up being in the end) just do what they want. Because that wont happen, he limits himself to who will take the job. Which makes things tough.
You make a very good point when you compare him to Jerry Jones, and you are bang on with that. Jones is right there on the field with his team, as Davis would be, and they both still have the control. The difference is that Jones found himself a coach that will deal with him the way he needs to, and still win games.
thanks for the great comment!
October 1st, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Lee…sorry that I offended you about my comments on Al Davis. But I stand behind them. Not as a bronco fan or NFL fan in general. But as a human being. Al Davis IMO, is a terrible human being. I think he is a liar and cheat. I think Mr. Shanahan and Mr Kiffen would agree with me.
October 1st, 2008 at 5:02 pm
And Mr. Gruden, the list goes on and on.
October 1st, 2008 at 5:03 pm
He refuses to pay his head coaches NFL money. Gruden earned it and he wouldn’t pay it.
October 1st, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Agreed Zach!!!! Anything that Lee has stated that Davis helped create or benefitted the NFL is easily tarnished from what an A$$hole he is.
He will be remembered as an old, out of touch, grumpy old man. Not the winner from the 70’s & 80’s that desperate Raider fans seem to want to cling too.
October 1st, 2008 at 6:02 pm
He is out of touch with reality in the NFL world. I have covered the NFL for a few years now and nobody that I have ever talked with in the NFL, players, coaches, owners, agents…..ever have a good thing to say about Davis. It is quite pathetic.
Out here in Phoenix, the Coytoes hired on another guy long in tooth, John Muckler. From all accounts this guy was too old in his last post in Ottawa, but yet another team recycles a guy over the hill.
When will teams understand these type of things hurt your organization more than helping it.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Here is a little more to add to the story!
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3620818
October 2nd, 2008 at 2:12 am
Thanks Broncoman, but you didn’t offend me, I just don’t think that Davis should be “badmouthed” that bad. I do agree that he makes big mistakes, and that his ways are out of date, he doesn’t treat his coaches (and some players) all that great, and he is disliked by many people. I also know that there are many many people that love the guy, and that he goes out of his way to keep people around him, that have helped him in the past. If you look at all of the people associated with the Raiders, from some coaches, to anouncers, to writers, you would note that most of them are either past players, or cheerleaders, or coaches of the team.
He has no doubt had his moments with the Shanahans, Kiffins, grudens, and I would definately add Marcus Allan to that list, but there are a heak of a lot more, that think very highly of Davis.
I just cannot see attacking a guy that we don’t know on a personal level. That said Broncoman, you never have to worry about offending me, I don’t get offended easily at all, but I will disagree, and I will debate, so I thank you for your comments and I’m glad you have read my blogs.
Thanks again