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
