Al Davis is up to his own tricks again. According to a report from ESPN.com, Oakland Raiders’ head coach Lane Kiffin is once again on the cusp of being fired.
In late January, ESPN Senior NFL Analyst Chris Mortensen reported that Raiders owner Al Davis had drawn up a resignation letter for Kiffin a week into the year and asked the coach to quit.
Now, Davis is preparing to fire Kiffin as soon as Monday, regardless of how the visiting Raiders perform Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs, the Mercury News has reported, citing several front-office sources.
“You have to look at the history. History is what it is, that he doesn’t keep people very long,” Kiffin said Wednesday of Davis, two days after the Raiders lost their season opener 41-14 to the Denver Broncos in Oakland.
“He’s not the guy I hired,” Davis said in mid-August, according to the report in the Bay Area newspaper.
Speculation about Kiffin’s status began in early January after reports surfaced following the season that he wanted to fire defensive coordinator Rob Ryan. The Raiders dismissed those reports and announced that Ryan was staying on as coordinator.
Kiffin was reportedly upset that he didn’t have control of his coaching staff, leading Davis to ask for his resignation. If Kiffin were to resign, he would not be paid for the remaining two years of his contract.
“We don’t have a general manager; everything goes through the owner,” Kiffin said Wednesday. “That sets up a difficult situation at times. Knowing who the owner is, you know from Day 1 there’s no job security.”
Why anyone would want that job is beyond me. Davis would be doing Kiffin a solid by firing him so that the young coach can catch on somewhere else or go back to the college ranks. Davis wants a “yes man” to take orders and do whatever is asked. Kiffin must have played that role while being interviewed for the Raiders’ job, but obviously once he was hired he wanted to (gasp!) run the team the way he wanted. Given this situation and their performance in Week 1, the Raiders are nowhere near being competitive again.
