I spoke with someone familiar with the Raiders’ situation within the last hour that confirmed ESPN’s report that Al Davis sent Lane Kiffin a letter of resignation to sign.
Apparently Al Davis’ frustration started back in November when Kiffin’s name was leaked as a candidate for the Arkansas job.
I know, Kiffin said he didn’t know how his name came up. Then again, Kiffin also said he didn’t know there were any rumors he was going to fire Rob Ryan.
As Richard Pryor famously said, “Who you gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes?”
From what I’m told, Kiffin indeed was interested in the job, even if he didn’t talk to the school himself.
Kiffin’s frustrations seem to stem from his belief he was promised things by Davis – namely a big say in personnel and the coaching staff – and Davis hasn’t delivered.
Here’s the deal. How naïve was Kiffin to believe Davis wouldn’t have a heavy hand in decisions. Kiffin wanted to fire Rob Ryan, but Davis didn’t let him fire Ryan or any other holdovers on the staff.
And did he really think he could inquire about college jobs, directly or indirectly, and it wouldn’t get back to Davis?
I’d like to know if the Raiders protected themselves with a convenient buyout clause. That would be only civil way to solve this.
Kiffin isn’t going to quit and leave $4 million. Davis isn’t going to fire him and pay Kiffin $4 million.
But as long as Davis is in charge, things will continue to be wacky around the Raiders.
I wonder if Kiffin could have changed the defensive staff if all of this would have been avoided.
The only recourse Davis seems to have is to make things so bad on Kiffin that he’d quit at the risk of sabotaging the season and having to pay another top-5 pick a lot of money.
I watch WWE because I enjoy a good soap opera mixed with some action.
But it looks like all I have to do is look at the Raiders for something like that.
Obviously Kiffin never mixed in any Mary J. Blige for his practice music.
You’d think Al, Lane, Rob-O and the crew would be sick of all the hateration in the Raider Nation by now.
--Jason Jones
@Nyx.CommentBody@