Carson Palmer, FTW

I found out from Dan via text message about an hour ago. Yes, we're all excited here. Ray Ratto has an interesting first take on the trade:

But what it absolutely means is this: Hue Jackson is now the general manager of the Oakland Raiders, the living modern-day embodiment of the man who hired him. He went from offensive coordinator to head coach to the master of the football operations department in nine months, a rise so meteoric that even Al in the afterlife must find that a bit breathtaking.

And then my favorite line:

Even Joseph Stalin cooled his heels for two years before throwing his elbows around.

We'll have more reactions as they come in. But I'll tell you what, Al loved players from USC, and he loved Heisman Trophy winners. It's on.

Breaking down the contiunous debacle, 2003-Now

Ray Ratto takes a look back at what he calls "the Troubles," the period of losing the Raiders have served up since getting destroyed in the Super Bowl.

I particularly enjoyed this passage:

Thus, it really matters not a jot what head coach Tom Cable says about staying the course, or what the players say about changing the direction, or what anyone says about national punch-line JaMarcus Russell or the Amish offensive line or the not-really-a-running-game or the hologram that is Javon Walker or Randy Hanson or really anything at all. This is nature at its most reliable. It's October, the wind is up, the leaves are turning, the Raiders have just embarrassed themselves, and they and we all know another season is irreparably damaged.

He then goes through and looks at ever game five since 2003, which was either a loss or a bye, and the game six that follows, also all losses.

I was at the game in 2004, with my wife and my mother and father. The Raiders lost 31-3. It's the only game I've ever left early, because it had started raining, much like it is today, in the late 3rd quarter, with the score already 31-3. It was my wife's first ever Raiders game. I'm kind of surprised she didn't divorce me.

Anyway, blah blah blah, the Raiders still suck and we are suckers for rooting for them.

Jawbreaker

A couple of more reaction columns this morning. Kawakami has a predictable, "This is why the Raiders suck, because Al Davis cultivates a paranoid atmosphere where nobody, especially the head coach, is really in charge, and so they do stupid things like punch each other in the face and lose 11 games a season," column up at the Merc. His comparison to the Shell/Lombardi feud of 2006 doesn't really work here, because that was more a battle between more or less equals for front office supremacy. They both loss. I guess Kawakami's point is that there's Al, and then there's everyone else, and in Al's eyes the head coach is just as much a peon as a generic defensive assistant. And besides, he took Hanson's side in the Kiffin debacle.

Which brings us to Ratto, who uses his column as an opportunity to take a shot at Lance. It's pretty funny, too:

So while we await developments in Napa and New York, we are most eager to await developments in Knoxville, Tenn., where Kiffin has some form of I-told-you-so clawing at his soft palate and desperate to get out soon.

Trust us, he won't be able to help himself. I mean, he never has before. That's why he's in the position he is today.

I think I'll take this opportunity to play a couple of songs by Jawbreaker.

More Nnamdi on Vick

I attributed this to Jerry Mac's twitter feed, because that's where I saw it first, but I should give props to David White who was on Chronicle Live with Nnamdi last night, which is apparently where the quote comes from.



Also, I'm not sure why the embedded video is cut off. The code they give you to copy is weird and needed to be edited, by me, with my limited skills.

Props to Ratto, I think, for the Bernie Maddoff joke.

Ratto on Lorenzo Neal

In addition to finally finding a use for Twitter, I'm finding myself being talked into this Raiders off-season as well.

Ray Ratto makes the case for the Lorenzo Neal signing:

Neal's is the type of signing the Raiders are often accused of making too seldom - that of the guy who spreads belief on the ground and in the room. His M.O. has been as the man who takes the "dys" out of "dysfunction," because he has done it with bad, mediocre and good teams in his career. He also knows that he can't be taken seriously if he can't lead with his play, and if he couldn't play, Al Davis would have tried to find someone else who does what he does.

Only there isn't anyone like Neal even at this stage of his career. Training with Liddell alone doesn't make that happen. Though this minicamp is showing off the Raiders' much-discussed draft class, Lorenzo Neal's arrival might be the more important development. If he can do what he has done in his other stops, he will be worth his weight in Darrius Heyward-Bey's money.

Here's hoping.

Opening Night

I'm choosing to ignore Ray Ratto's negative Nancy routine and will be attending tonight's Home opener for the A's at the Coliseum.

I'm also hoping that it goes better than the Raiders home opening night went last year.

Check for live updates if I get an iPhone signal.

Donkeys vs. Cutler: BWAAAHAHAHA!!!!

You can get all the details on the Denver/Jay Cutler debacle on Bill Williamson's ESPN Denver Broncos Blog, er, AFC West Blog.

Anyway, what it has me thinking about is how different this Raider Season is from previous years. Other than the tragic Marquis Cooper story, an accident that nobody on Harbor Bay Parkway could have had anything to do with, the Raiders' off-season has been drama free.

Sure, there's Cable's "critical" comments about Jammy, but look at the contortions people have to go through to even make that news.

Here, it's been nothing but Nmamdi, Lechler, and Al Davis hagiography at the Owner's Meetings (feel free to ask Nmamdi what "hagiography" means. Anyone who uses "apocryphal" in a sentence correctly and nonchallantly can tell you what it means).

Maybe Sllaacs can comment on Ray Ratto's Psalm to Jay Cutler.

Happy Thanksgiving and "Throwbacks"

Ray Ratto is just being funny, and he does a good job, when he says the Raiders should rock their "Oakland Señores" look on opening night against the Chargers for the AFL 50th anniversary celebration. Besides, everyone knows the Raiders wear throwbacks every time out, since 1963.

But check it out.

The first game of this AFL double header is the Patriots vs. the Bills. And according to Reiss's Pieces (clever name, douche), the Pats are wearing replicas of their 1963 uniforms.

Yeah, so fine, apparently they advanced to the AFL title game that year (who knew Walt Coleman has been a ref that long?). But I still think it's an interesting coincidence that the Raiders are also wearing their 1963 uniforms, as they have pretty much since Al Davis took over the team.

Also, the Raiders are playing at Dallas on Thanksgiving Day. My favorite Holiday just got better.

Fat Kicker Toss: WTF?!

Here's a round-up of reactions to what will now be known as "Fat Kicker Toss:"

We'll start with Kawakami, since he's the one who coined "Fat Kicker Toss." He calls Cable an "amateur" and compares the interim coach's soon-to-be-brief tenure to the Gong Show.

Lowell Cohn: Nice knowing you, Coach.

Jerry Mac: No excuse.

Ratto: "I mean, in what universe does a play that relies on an 17-yard scamper by Janikowski make sense?"

Jason Jones: It wasn't the drunkenness; you saw that.

Gutierrrez: Silly? Dumb? Nah. It's the Raiders.

Peterson: Cable's mad, not a genius.

I'm sure there are more out there, but I'm kind of sick to my stomach after reading the above-linked pieces.

Okay, Then.

So Lance is still employed, and not commenting on any conversations he may or may not have or have had with Al Davis.

Meanwhile, Lowell Cohn laid out the case why Kiffin should be fired: because he's not a good coach. He's a dead man walking.

Gary Peterson goes with the soft bigotry of low expectations, says Kiffin deserves to keep his job and finish turning this around.

Ratto handicaps the situation. Ostler calls Al a "Drama Queen."

Meanwhile, the Rams have shit-canned Scott Linehan and hired Jim Haslett as their coach. So somewhere, somebody did something.

Was Herrera Art Shell's "Fox in the Henhouse?"

There are a lot of good takes on what went on today. Kawakami, seen in the video almost getting punched by John Herrera. USF MFA in Writing professor Lowell Cohn (I know you'd never guess by reading this blog, but I'm a student in that program) has a good one, seeing as how he was being slandered by Herrera, too.

I first read about this, and saw the video, at Jason Jones' blog. But it was an earlier post by Jones that intrigued me more, where he wrote this:

There was some mention last week of a Raider employee handing out a copy of an article to writers that was critical of Kiffin.

You want to know why that's a big deal? Remember when Art Shell was mad a couple of years ago about a team employee undermining him? It's the same thing.

That was the Raider employee in question yelling "that's not true" when a question was asked referencing articles being passed out to writers.

So is he saying that Herrera was the infamous "Fox in the Henhouse?" I always thought he was talking about Lombardi. In fact, Bill Soliday wrote that Herrera was included on a list of people that Art was NOT talking about in November 2006. So maybe Art was bamboozled into thinking it was Lombardi (by the way, whoever it was doing the undermining, him and Tom Walsh deserved it; they were flat-out horrible) when really it was Herrera? Or does he just mean that it's the same type of deal: Instead of Lombardi leaking about Shell to the media, Herrera leaking dirt on Kiffin?

Either way, what's lost in all of this is Kiffin's answers in the press conference about whether or not he's quitting. I know Jerry wrote about it (while leaving out the fight; maybe he wasn't there, although Herrera seems to complain about him, too). Here's the quote:

“There’s no way I’m quitting, and that’s got nothing to do with money, at all,” Kiffin said. “That has to do with our players. I talked a lot of these players into coming here at some point - obviously, money has a lot to do with that - in free agency over the last two years. A lot of our coaches, I recruited them and their families to come here and build this thing together. So the last thing I’m ever gonna do is quit, the way that you guys are talking about quitting or even quit behind closed doors, as far as my energy or my passion towards getting this thing turned around.

“Because I believe we can turn this thing around. And there’s a lot of good things going the right direction, and I think we’re gonna turn it around.”

Watch the video. Tell me he's not sincere.

UPDATE: I swear, I was going to title a post "As the Raiders Turn" before Nancy did, only when I went to blog about the video, Dan was already all over it. Why would she say "a Raiders employee," when the video is everywhere, and everyone knows it's Herrera?

Ratto Goes There.

In his column today, Ray Ratto brings up the time Buddy Ryan punched Kevin Gilbride in the face at the end of a 1993 Houston Oilers game in which Gilbride's offense was sucking ass.

I really wish I could find a video of this.

Anyway.

I always thought Rob should have punched Tom Walsh in the face. But Ratto has some interesting new info: that Rob and Lane are barely speaking. According to Jason Jones' transcript of Ryan's interview, which was a couple of questions longer than Jerry's, when asked if Lane and Rob still share "grooming tips and beers," Ryan replied, "Hell yeah."

I didn't really believe that. Jerry wrote yesterday that Ryan's presser was supposed to accomplish two things: defend his players and refute Lane's "Rob and the owner run the defense and it's their fault we suck so don't blame me" rant the day before. Ratto's column confirms this. And he asks a great question: Why would Al spend $200 Million (not really, more like $50) in the off season and then not want fire Lane because he's worried about $4 million? Just to ruin his career? Does he even care about the Raiders any more, or is only interested in settling personal, petty scores?

So anyway, we're in dysfunction junction, and to make it even more awesome, Mario Henderson will start at left tackle.

At least Jared Allen's not in KC anymore.

The Inaugural CLOAK OF IMMORTALITY Nancy Gay Memorial Hater of the Week Award

I was reading The Sporting Green in the Chronicle this morning while riding BART. Ray Ratto had a clever column asking Roger Goodell to step in and help fix our two struggling Bay Area teams by combining them. Then I got to Dan's Favorite Football Writer's column on the elite teams of the NFL. It was informative; I learned a lot of new things about what's going on around the league. Who knew that Vince Young needed to be defended by his coach? I didn't get that info from ESPN.

Then, in her last item, she took an incredibly cheap shot:

-- Interesting e-mail of the week: I posed this question last weekend to an NFL general manager - why has Steelers rookie coach Mike Tomlin, 35, shown himself to be a more confident, commanding, respected leader than Raiders coach Lane Kiffin, 32?

Talent aside (particularly at the quarterback position), the GM summed up the difference in a surprisingly succinct way: "Because Mike Tomlin was prepared for the Steelers' job and Lane Kiffin was given the Raiders' job."

This general manager has a point. Tomlin had been the Buccaneers' defensive backs coach from 2001 through '05 and the Vikings' defensive coordinator in '06. He had NFL credibility that his players instantly respected.

Kiffin had been USC's offensive coordinator and shared play-calling duties with Trojans assistant head coach Steve Sarkisian - Al Davis' first choice for the job - in 2005-'06. Before that, he was a position coach on offense at Fresno State, Colorado State and USC, where he also had recruiting coordinator responsibilities.

In retrospect, Kiffin's greatest selling point to the beaten-down Raiders' players was that he wasn't Art Shell.

Really? Which GM did she ask? Isiah Thomas?

Talent aside?

Talent aside?

One more time:

TALENT ASIDE?!

Has anyone ever heard the phrase "Making chicken salad out of chicken shit?" Because what Lane Kiffin's been asked to do in the job he's been "given" is make chicken salad out of bat guano.

The Steelers are a team a year removed from winning the SUPER BOWL. The only key contributor not still on that team is locker room-cancer Joey Porter.

The Raiders haven't won more than 5 games in 5 years now. The only player on the team who played there when the Raiders were good is Barry "False Start" Simms.

So how could talent just be pushed aside when asking that question? I'm not saying Lane Kiffin is a better coach than Omar Epps or anything like that. I'm just saying that Vince Lombardi couldn't win more than 6 games with this Raiders team as currently constructed. Hell, Al Davis circa 1963 couldn't win more than 6 games with this team.

Give the kid a break. He's got Mono. He's trying to rebuild not just a team's talent but an entire culture of losing that goes back at least five years. He was "given" the job because Nobody Else Would Touch it with a Ten Foot Pole. At least nobody whose previous job wasn't turning down sheets in a bed and breakfast.

So congratulations, Nancy. The CLOAK OF IMMORTALITY is naming a new award in your honor:

The CLOAK OF IMMORTALITY Nancy Gay Memorial Hater of the Week Award.

This weeks winner of the inaugural CLOAK OF IMMORTALITY Nancy Gay Hater of the Week Award is:

Nancy Gay

Congratulations, Nancy. You've just been named the winner of the CLOAK OF IMMORTALITY Nancy Gay Memorial Hater of the Week Award. Prizes include scorn heaped upon your head by the members of the Raider Nation, Al Davis never ever saying at your funeral, "Time never stops for the great ones, we give them the CLOAK OF IMMORTALITY," and the wishes of hundreds that you get a parking ticket.