al davis

I usually defend al davis and even still, I admit to being very fond of the guy. As a raider fan, many seasons and many Sundays, over the years, I have been pleased. But lane kiffin exposes al’s greatest weakness. Al is mortal, concerned with immortality and a little bit selfish.

Lane kiffin seems like a nice guy and he seems like someone who will succeed at some point in his career, (and despite the excellent pedigree with pete carroll’s knee included,) he is in over his head. Perhaps football coaches are one dimensional and so, life experience is overrated when compared to the will to win, the single-mindedness and focus peculiar to some of the greats, but at 31, kiffin is just too wet behind the ears to succeed in a job as demanding as the one he just accepted.

For davis, the hiring exposes the fact he is looking for some magical potion cure-all to bring the silver and black back to prominence. Especially considering his age, I don’t think he has the patience to make the right choices that will realistically take a last place team, with more head cases than a taxidermist, from worst to first. That’s a 3-6 year project. Anything quicker than that is gravy but davis can be seen through this choice to be just guessing, throwing the dart at the wall of balloons while smiling over at the wife and kids only to miss a balloon by three feet.

I guess he remembered his last success in choosing a coach, the time he had to give up all his locker room and playbook control to the brash youngster who he had to admit, oozed confidence and success. He is so far removed form his hire of jon gruden he can be felt in the cosmos hoping and praying people do not make the connection to this move as being the closing of that loop that was davis hiring him but being frustrated with his charisma and the volume of good publicity it garnered, (seemingly effortlessly,) to davis privately feuding with him but being shut up by the scoreboard weekly, (by gruden and gannon,) to davis’ own inflated confidence allowing him to trade gooden away to tampa bay for two Hershey bars and a 50-cent piece, to gruden making him pay ever so dearly with an epic beating in the biggest game in the universe, to davis avoiding the subject and riding the raiders success, despite the superbowl loss, to the ability to claim he was not bothered nor did he think the glazer’s got the better of him in that trade, to letting some time go by and firing Callahan and hiring turner then firing curly joe and hiring shem to firing art shell to this.

The 31-year-old savior of the franchise who al saw in a dream and followed a star south down interstate 5 to find in troy is going to create a robust offense by using the word “attacking,” a lot and emulating jon gruden?! Lane kiffin is going to magically turn aaron brooks into daryle lamonica, randy moss into a model teammate and hard worker, lamont Jordan into a true starting running back in the nfl, all while patrolling the Oakland sidelines?! (maybe with monkeys flying out of his ass?)

As a raider fan, I wish kiffin luck. It would be refreshing to be wrong about this. But all that stuff everyone’s been saying about al davis’ ego these many years, is sadly true. Davis is hoping to catch lightning in a bottle without considering the odds. He is looking for the quick fix. He wants to be admired as a football genius. Maybe that’s not so bad considering his age, but that doesn’t make his choice any better.