Who the Fuck is Randy Hanson? Also, John's Picks.

Good job by Dan and Sllaacs keeping up the blog while I've been out of action. I think all of the stupidity of the last week made me sick.

Anyway, so just what the Raiders the morning of a game with a division rival: More controversy. Some guy named Randy Hanson was suspended by Lance after the Monday Night Debacle of September 8 after he was overheard saying, "It's a good thing that Shanahan didn't have our players, or else he would have beaten us 1,000-0."

So now he's the latest assistant coach to come out and call Lance a liar, and what with all the injuries, I'll be shocked if we keep the game within 30 points today. The only inflection we're likely to see or hear is in Al's voice when he speaks to the media this week, if he was telling Corkran the truth. on thisAt least that will be interesting. Chargers win, 42-10.

Jerry has more on this, saying that Kiffin's big mistake was in not talking to Al before trying to fire Rob, etc, which is the same shit Shanny did 20 years ago when he tried to purge his staff of Art Shell and Tom Walsh. We all know how that ended up.

Again, I'm not saying Kiffin is the 2nd coming of Bill Walsh. He's clearly not. He's also probably a hypocrite, as Peterson argues so persuasively. But anyone who thinks he's the only, or even the main problem, is in denial. Deep, crushing, unhealthy denial.

The 49ers are playing pretty good football. It could be a shoot out in the dome. I like the 9ers, actually, 31-28.

I like Tampa over the Packers, in a squeaker, 17-14. Maybe even OT. Raiders fans will watch, wistfully, remembering what it was like to have a well-coached football team.

Jets-Cardinals. Maybe there's something to this trade speculation of Jerry's. I would trade every receiver who is not a rookie, and next years (likely Top-5) for Anquan Boldin. Do it NBA-style, so the cap numbers match. But that's just me. I'm weird, I want JaMarcus to be successful.

Oh. Cardinals win after they return 3 Favre INTs for six. I'd a double-bagged.

Growth?

Kawakami has an excellent column this morning, asking if Al and the Raiders will learn from this mistake.

It's important to remember that Lance Kiffin wasn't exactly qualified for this position when he got it. Everybody else, from Bernard Petrino to Mike Martz to Dan and I were interviewed for this job, and while not all of us were offered the job, we all took ourselves out of the running for various reasons. But once Lane got here, I thought he did a pretty good job of trying to change the culture of the locker room. And according to Steve Corkran on KNBR the other day, all of this started when Lane fired Rob Ryan in January. Ryan went upstairs to say "Peace Out" to Al, and Al said, "Let's not start sucking each other's dicks just quite yet, Lance doesn't have hiring and firing power." (These are not verbatim quotes. Listen to the podcast.) Al wrote up a letter of resignation, said "Sign it, you little punk." "Fire me."

Anyway, at this point, Lane has to go. He just has to be fired. The Raiders, instead of acting like a merely incompetent organization and just firing their coach, are passing around notes saying their coach is a bad kid. This is ridiculous. I don't even remember the Bengals doing shit like this. The Clippers never acted this way. The closest thing I can think of is the maybe the way Steinbrenner treated Dave Winfield by paying a mafia gambler for dirt on him. But he was a player.

Getting back to Kawakami's column, I think the answer to the question "Will Al/Raiders learn anything?" is no. Sadly, depressingly, hilariously, no.

Speculation Nation

The only word on Kiffin's status that came out of Alameda today was from Kiffin himself, although you wouldn't know it from the Monday Q&A posted to raiders.com.

"He (Al, a.k.a. "the owner") has a decision to make. It does me no good to worry about it right now."

But after Corkran dropped the "He's not the guy I hired" report and Nancy added a little "He (Rob Ryan) took responsibility - Unlike the head coach" to the fire, we await the news.

Will he be fired by morning, Al having long ago made up his mind and finally satisfied that he has the goods to claim breach of contract? Will it be during the bye week, after two difficult games that might provide both football cause and an extra week to make the transition? Or will this morph into some crazy Al power trip whereby he figures he's taught Lance a lesson?

Corkran's next bit of insight is this: "He (Al, who else) isn't bound to anyone's timeline." Will he really fire Kiffin after a big win at Arrowhead? Did Ned Yost think he would be fired today?