The Week Ahead

It should be an exciting one.

Every Raiders offseason brings drama, but it seems to bring more terrible drama each time. Trading Gruden, signing Sapp, signing Moss, hiring Shell, starting from rock bottom with Kiffin. The current disaster is devastating because we thought we had made progress (yes, to 4-12), only to find the trajectory appears still to be downward.

Nothing has actually happened, so no need to panic, right? Unfortunately, the denials on both sides have been weak, to say the least. Kiffin "hopes" he'll be back. Trask proves that she is a lawyer: "He has all the authority he had when he was hired." Sounds more like protection against a breach-of-contract complaint.

The strongest denial thus far is reported by The Chronicle, with Herrera saying, "The whole story is a flat-out lie and a total fabrication. We deny the entire story. No authority has been stripped. That's unabashedly false." But Herrera also admits that Al Davis was irritated by the reports linking Kiffin to Arkansas. Maybe this denial hinges on how you define "story."

Meanwhile, the Raiders have James Lofton in to interview...for something. Coaching changes are underway with a special teams assistant out. And Steve Corkran reports that the Raiders are trying to talk to Al Saunders. Are we to guess that Kiffin wants to replace Knapp?

The one positive I thought we had taken out of 2006 was that Al Davis had a chance to run his offense just the way he wanted to, and it failed so miserably that perhaps he was ready to go in a different direction. Maybe by allowing Arkansas rumors to fester, Kiffin lost his chance for it to be in his direction. As Al Davis proves a more and more impossible boss, taking this franchise in any direction but down will be up to the most desperate of coaching candidates.

As of today, those odds don't look good.