| Authored by Christopher Reina - 30th September, 2008 - 2:43 pm
 With John Herrera (of Tim Kawakami fame) standing to his right dressed in black and appearing not unlike an undertaker, Lane Kiffin sat down at the podium for Sunday's postgame news conference.
Lane Kiffin, who rubbed his eyes as almost each question was being asked, was ready for the Al Davis experience to be over.
Al Davis, who has a line of thought that is as mysterious as ever, was ready for the Lane Kiffin experience to be over.
The media covering the Raiders was enjoying every moment of it, but now all parties have finally been put out of their own misery as Kiffin was fired via telephone by Davis on Tuesday.
The situation was irreconcilable, and so the Raiders' biggest error was to not fire Kiffin back in March.
If the 3rd and goal play inside three minutes in the 4th quarter when Zach Miller would have scored an easy touchdown if he hadn't lost his footing would have converted, is Kiffin still the Raiders' head coach?
Doubtful, so why even have him start the season and have your organization under that type of scrutiny?
That Miller play was keyed in on by Kiffin following the game.
"We left a lot of points out there, especially the last drive with the throw to Zach," said Kiffin.
For the second consecutive week, the Raiders outplayed their opponent and were defeated by 4th quarter letdowns, something that has become a hallmark of the Kiffin-era, whether it's his fault or not.
"Every year is different; they're a better team (this year)," said LaDanian Tomlinson following the Chargers' come from behind victory on Sunday.
"To me it seemed they played a heck of a ball game," added Tomlinson when asked about the Raiders' coaching situation.
I agree with Tomlinson, who was rendered a non-factor in the first half with just seven yards rushing, and his two touchdowns looked far more dominant in the newspaper on Monday than they did on Sunday.
Tomlinson spoke of how they kept calling the stretch run to the outside and on his first touchdown, the line pinned the Raiders' defense to the left, and he cut back through a hole to the right to the end zone.
If you remove Tomlinson's 41-yard run at the very end of the game, the Chargers averaged just 3.5 yards per carry.
JaMarcus Russell played well and showed some more signs of improvement even though he still holds onto the ball too long when the pocket collapses. He also is too gun shy about scrambling for yards on the ground when his receivers are well-covered.
But the touchdown to Miller on a streak with blown coverage by San Diego's Tim Dobbins was just about as picture perfect as a play could be. It was a brilliant play call to start a drive, and Russell completed a great pass.
"All I'm going to ask is come into that locker room exhausted," said Kiffin to his team on Saturday night.
The Raiders played one of their best games in recent memory and were exhausted because they fought for his job even though the decision to fire Kiffin had little to do with on-field play and everything to do with what happens within the walls of Raider-land.
Kiffin will be fine. He's well-liked and well-respected and will probably end up the head coach at a major conference college by Christmas.
The Raiders will be the Raiders until Al Davis fully relinquishes control of the decision-making to the right football mind.
Davis desperately wants one more Super Bowl, and I would love to see it happen. He was Jerry Jones when Jones was looking for oil and passing up on the Chargers. As successful as Jones has been with the Cowboys, they haven't won a playoff game with a core roster he has put together as GM.
The biggest problem in this saga is that for the Raiders' players, especially franchise cornerstones like Russell and Darren McFadden, lunacy is normalcy, and normalcy is five consecutive losing seasons for a franchise that has the highest winning percentage since Davis arrived way back in 1963.
That winning percentage lead is quickly being erased, and if the Raiders are to once again make a Commitment to Excellence, Davis leads to finally make a Commitment to Letting Go.
- Christopher Reina is the executive editor of RealGM |
