Lane Kiffin can’t get the Oakland Raiders out of his head.
USC Coach Lane Kiffin’s several years and two football teams removed from his brief go as Head Coach Of The Oakland Raiders, and yet, he still can’t resist getting in a dig at the organization which gave him his first NFL coaching job in 2007.
In an interview with ESPN Page 2’s Thomas Neumann, Kiffin wasted no time in kicking the Silver and Black, and especially Oakland Raiders Manger of the General Partner, Al Davis. This is what he said in response to the idea that working for the Raiders was “an unwinnable situation.”
It is almost impossible. I don’t know why I didn’t listen, (because) so many people told me that. That’s why, if you ask (Steve Sarkisian), he didn’t go. He had a chance to go. You’re just so far behind other clubs. You’re waiting for (owner Al Davis) to wake up and come to work at 2 o’clock in the afternoon to make decisions that the rest of the league is making at 6 o’clock in the morning. You’re still running videotapes over to the hotel so he can watch practice at night.
Then Lane went on about how Al Davis using an overhead projector during his now famous presentation of the termination letter he wrote to Lane Kiffin in 2008, “describes the pace that you’re dealing with of the way an organization is being run.”
Lane could have just left that alone, really. I
He could have chosen not to address the “Oakland Situation,” but he did, and that was very sad.
I don’t know Coach Kiffin, and was not in favor of Mr. Davis hiring Kiffin at the time, even though Lane did eventually clear the relationship between the front office and wide receivers Jerry Porter, and the legendary Randy Moss.
But at the time, I said that Al Davis hiring Lane Kiffin, and before him by a few years, a young Jon Gruden was basically the Raiders “Affirmative Action For Young White Men.”
I jumped all over the organization, went to war against the Raider Nation, listed Lane’s inexperience, (and lack of an offensive innovation to his credit), and then I wrote:
Or how about Hue Jackson, now Offensive Coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons and who’s Black, has over 20 years of coaching experience, including Offensive Coordinator at two NCAA schools — Cal and USC — and now two NFL teams, and knows more pass offense than Kiffin ever saw or coached? Yet the Raiders never called him at all.
It took Al Davis five years to correct his error.
But Lane Kiffin’s still proving that Mr. Davis made a mistake in hiring him on January of 2007. Lane’s good at burning bridges, and it’s no wonder Peyton Manning dislikes him.
Stay tuned.
Bill Carroll