If you’re to believe anything that former Raiders cornerback DeAngelo Hall says, Al Davis made a bit of a hasty hire in selecting Tom Cable to replace Lane Kiffin as his head coach last year. I guess he couldn’t let some other team take him for their head coaching job. From Jerry McDonald’s interview with Hall on Inside The Oakland Raiders (via flubby):
The funniest Al Davis story from his time in Oakland?
Hall: Probably the funniest thing, I was pretty close to Lane Kiffin…and after they fired Lane and were about to announce who the next coach was - I don’t know if you guys saw this in the media world, but I was actually sitting there live, me and a couple other players there in the back. And [Davis] went through this whole spiel of what happened…and said our next coach is Tom Cable, he’s going to be our interim coach. When everybody paused for Tom to come in, like a breakoff. [Davis] goes to the media guide and not even whispering says ‘hey, anyone got any information on this Tom Cable guy, I don’t know where he comes from.’ That’s just vintage Al Davis. Making a move, not really knowing why, no real justification for doing it. But just saying, ‘hey, I want this guy, let’s get him, I’ll figure everything else out later.’ And that’s just how Al Davis is.
Nothing this guy does could surprise us anymore. I don’t know whether to bet that his next hire will be a Muppet, a homeless guy, or just some jagoff from Merced. Fortunately for Davis, Tom Cable is all of those things. Well done, Mr. Davis.
Raiders owner Al Davis ventured into the light of day, ostensibly to introduce interim coach Tom Cable (although really, is any Raiders coach NOT interim?), but in reality Davis used his time onstage to call Lane Kiffin a “liar,” a “disgrace,” and a “godless child molester.” That last one I’m just guessing.
At one point, Davis read a three-page letter (written in blood, no doubt) that he sent to Kiffin outlining the former coach’s supposed faults, even placing it on an overhead projector for all to see. It couldn’t have been easy to borrow that from the Museum of Shit Teachers Used Twenty Years Ago.
Naturally, this circus of the dark arts has made for some awesome columns and blog posts from the media outlets in northern California.
The Mercury News’ Ann Killion:
He dumped all the dirty, disgusting laundry out in front of the television cameras and microphones and notebooks. And the stench was awful.
