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.
The real Whiskey Tango Foxtrot pick of the NFL Draft was the Raiders’ RRRRRRRREACH! for Maryland wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey with the seventh pick overall . Heyward-Bey seems to fit the Raiders’ mold athletic wideouts, but his overall game is somewhat questionable, just as the Raiders’ decision to leave Michael Crabtree on the board was questionable.
“I kind of live by that statement from Coach Walsh. When you find the one you want, go get it,” he said. “Don’t let anyone detract you and don’t worry about what they say.”
The Raiders selected more players on the draft’s second day who had the speed to fit that bill. Oakland used its first pick in the fourth round on Florida receiver Louis Murphy, who ran a 4.43 in the 40-yard dash at the NFL combine and was a former track star in high school.
The Raiders also picked Wisconsin defensive end Matt Shaughnessy in the third round, Oregon State linebacker Slade Norris in the fourth, Missouri linebacker Stryker Sulak in the sixth and Iowa tight end Brandon Myers in the sixth.
So surprising that the Raiders would deviate from the general consensus like that. They obviously know something we don’t. Or their owner is a 142-year-old baron from the old country who’s totally off his rocker. One of those. The consolation is that at this rate, they’ll pick in at least that good a spot next year…if there is a draft.
With the NFL Draft coming Saturday, it’s an appropriate time to look back at one of the great draft busts of all time. Mike Sager at Esquire comes through with one of those Where Are They Now type pieces on NFL draft bust Todd Marinovich, the guy whose micromanagement of his training, diet, and social life by his father became the stuff of legend. It’s a long, but fantastic read. Here’s one of the more bizarre anecdotes, starting with this Howard Hughes-ish gem regarding how Marinovich beat the NFL’s drug testing (emphasis added):
Todd felt he couldn’t function without marijuana. “It just allowed me to be comfortable in this loud, chaotic world. Especially the world I was living in. I couldn’t fathom being sober,” he says. To reconcile these conflicting realities, he kept Gatorade bottles of clean urine, donated by non-pot-smoking friends, in the refrigerator at his Manhattan Beach townhouse, one block from the ocean, which he’d purchased for $900,000…Soon after, the Raiders got a call from the NFL: Todd’s urine sample had registered a blood-alcohol level of .32 — four times the legal limit.
Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing. And then do yourself another favor and brush your teeth, for Pete’s sake. Who’s Pete? The guy that said your breath smells like old camel butt.
Raiders fans are not just like us. That’s exactly why this video is so entertaining. Raiders fans combine the passion of the college sports fan with the mental restraint of the mentally disabled sports fan. And they do it so seemlessly that it’s hard to tell where the team allegiance ends and the brain damage begins. Does this mean we can start bombing California now?
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More “highlights” of Raiders fandom after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
The Oakland Raiders’ long streak of excellence in the personnel department continued apace yesterday, as offensive tackle Cornell Green was arrested in Florida on domestic abuse charges. Huh. I didn’t realize domestic abuse was illegal in Florida.
Tampa police say Green became violent Saturday during an argument at his home there with the mother of his two children. Police say Green slammed 30-year-old Teriyonal Ebony Flowers into a wall, then struck her right arm with an aluminum mop handle.
The former player at Central Florida then fled the house. He was arrested at Tampa International Airport before a flight he had planned to take to Oakland, Calif.
Cornell Green is listed at 6′6″ and 315 pounds. You have to admire the chivalry of a man that size who still won’t hit a woman with a closed fist. Why, if chivalry is dead, it’s only because its boyfriend loved it TOO much.
Unless you read last year’s Pro Football Prospectus, you might want to sit down for this one: Raiders cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha just signed the most lucrative per annum deal in NFL history: three years, 45.3 million smackeroos.
The first two years pay him $28.5 million - all guaranteed. That’s how much he would have made if the Raiders used the franchise tag on him. The difference now is both years are guaranteed against injury.
The third year will pay him $16.8 million, or the average of the top five quarterback salaries whichever is higher, according to multiple national reports. The Raiders have a team option for that third year but must void it in early March 2011 or that season’s salary becomes fully guaranteed.
Extravagant cash for a defensive player? Consider that Asomugha would have earned the same money had the Raiders been forced to use the franchise tag to keep him. He’s a shutdown cornerback and possibly the best player in Oakland; he’s a proven guy that’s being retained at a competitive rate. But one has to wonder: How valuable can one Assmonger be to a 5-11 team?
