DeAngelo Hall calls out Falcons’ head coach
Posted by Anthony Stalter (11/09/2009 @ 1:15 pm)
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During the first half of the Atlanta’s 31-17 win over Washington on Sunday, former Falcon DeAngelo Hall got into a skirmish along the sideline with some of his former teammates and wound up mixing it up with Atlanta head coach Mike Smith.
Afterwards, Hall (who is a complete loudmouth) had this to say to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
“I ran over there to kind of pull my guy away,” Hall said. “One of their strength and conditioning coaches put his hands on me and started grabbing me. Then it went to various other guys pulling at me and grabbing me. Through the whole time, I’m trying to get the guys’ hands off of me.”
“I can’t wait for guys to sit back and watch the replay. I can’t wait to watch the replay. I’m going to be giving Commissioner [Roger] Goodell a call myself because something needs to be done about that.”
Hall didn’t think that Smith was simply trying to break up a fight.
“When he comes over to put his hands on you in a harmful way, something needs to be done about that,” Hall said. “Like I said, I’m going to call Commissioner Goodell. Ray Anderson, who used to be with the Falcons, I know him very well, and he’s the vice president over there in the league office. I definitely will be calling some of my friends to work out this situation.”
Hall was asked again if he was contending that Smith came after him.
“Oh, yeah,” Hall said. “He put his hands on me in a harmful way. Talking about that he was going to kick my [butt] and all this other [stuff]. That’s not how you do things.
I saw the fight live and in no way was Hall trying to help the situation by, “getting his guy away.” He went to the sidelines looking for a fight and he got one. Smith did grab him, but it appeared that he was trying to get Hall away from the sidelines and his players. I don’t know what words were exchanged between the two, but Hall is trying to play the victim role in this situation, which is an absolute joke.
Now, maybe there’s a rule that coaches can’t touch opposing players and maybe the league will look into the situation. But I guarantee you Smith earned the respect of his players by getting into Hall’s face and the whole situation could have been avoided had Hall not carried on like the punk he is.
Hall has always had attitude problems and this isn’t the first time he’s gotten into skirmishes in the middle of the game with opponents, referees or even his own teammates. He’s a cocky, selfish player and it’s clear that he has a long way to go before he matures.
DeAngelo Hall: Al Davis didn’t know Tom Cable
Posted by Anthony Stalter (05/19/2009 @ 3:50 pm)
Current Redskin and former Raiders’ cornerback DeAngelo Hall appeared on a Washington D.C. based radio show recently and told an interesting story about Oakland owner Al Davis not knowing who Tom Cable was when he hired him.
The funniest Al Davis story from his time in Oakland?
“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.”
His thoughts on being out of Oakland:
“Oh, it’s a weight off my shoulders, just that whole situation out there and the way they did things. I’m not knocking it but it wasn’t what I was accustomed to, what I was used to, and I just started just not caring like a bunch of other guys, you know. It kind of rubs off on you. They say you go to Oakland as a player to die..You can definitely go there and have fun towards the end of your career, but to go there during the prime of your career, that’s just not a place you want to be. I felt the same when I was out of there – just a sigh of relief to get out of there.”
For as zany as Al Davis is, I highly doubt he would hire a head coach not knowing who he was. I also highly doubt that Davis would say what Hall says he did in front of an entire media staff. (And loud enough for Hall to hear it in the back, but not loud enough for the media members to hear it in the front.) It just sounds like Davis didn’t know where Cable was from (i.e. where he was born, raised, bred, etc.), which isn’t as big of a deal as Hall making it sound like Davis hired Cable not knowing who he was.
His second comment is vintage Hall and vintage Raiders. Hall isn’t saying anything that former Raiders haven’t said before about the situation in Oakland, but it doesn’t surprise me in the least that he says that he stopped caring. The Raiders handed him a $70 million contract and $24 million in guaranteed money and he couldn’t even make it half a season without throwing in the towel. I know the situation in Oakland lends to guys quitting, but it pisses you off when you hear about guys making millions of dollars to play football and they just go through the motions. (Especially in this economy.)
