The Raiders Situation

I don't know what to believe on the ongoing Raiders-Kiffin saga. Do they want him gone or not? He won't comment and the Raiders deny the reports. It's a question of who do I trust less, rumor-passing sports reporters or the most secretive sports franchise in the America. I'm hoping the Raiders are right and they aren't firing Kiffin, who did a great job in his first year as a head coach anywhere, and showed he can manage a game and instill a good offensive system. Rob Ryan needs to go because in four years with the team, the Raiders haven't improved on defense, save one fluke year when teams didn't try to score on them because the Raiders offense was so horrible. Then again, it could be that Al Davis insists on playing man to man defense as other people have reported, and his defensive coordinator has no say over his own part of the team. I really don't want this to be true because it'll validate what everyone has said about Davis. It will also mean that Davis has to go for the good of the team. And that's the saddest thing about this whole mess. Davis has been a brilliant football mind for so long and has done more to push civil rights in football than any other owner (including Dan Rooney of the Rooney Rule fame). Davis hired black and Hispanic coaches before the league forced people to look that way. He had black players on his team early on, and he was always an outspoken advocate for equality in football. He had a good mind for the Xs and Os of football too. His power run, vertical pass scheme was brilliant in its time, but his time may have passed. The man who has unearth more coaching gems than anyone else (Shanahan, Gruden, Madden, Flores) seemingly had gotten another one in Kiffin. I hope he stays with that one. If not, the Raiders are back to where they started and this last year, full of hope and wins on the road and over AFC rivals, was a wasted one.