Aaaaand it's showtime!
The link above is a pdf (h/t CBS) of the letter sent by the Oakland Raiders to the University of Tennessee regarding the arbitration hearings between Al Davis and Lane Kiffin. It basically lays out the cards for the Raiders' strategy in the hearings, though not with all of the actual details they intend to bring. So as not to sent our dear lawya Joel into apoplectic shock, I decided not to blockquote the whole thing here, so you'll have to go read it yourself. However, that won't stop me from bringing the quick highlights for the AD/HD and the lazy. According to the letter:
- Mr. Kiffin lied and broke rules!
- Mr. Kiffin was admonished!
- Mr. Kiffin didn't talk to Al Davis enough!
- Mr. Kiffin called the Raiders "dysfunctional"!
- etc., etc., etc...
Maybe the Broncos fan in me had a little too much fun with that, but that is about the gist of the whole thing. This will be a fun little circus for everyone to follow, even though it's going to get rather unprofessional and nasty by the time it's all done.
Actually, it already got a little nasty. At the end of the letter, the Raiders talk about Vols who have been associated with them. Adding a little "it'd be a shame for that relationship to be damaged" rhetoric, you can easily read into it that the Raiders would be less likely to draft or trade for former Vols simply because Lane Kiffin is the coach in Knoxville. (It's not directly worded, which is oddly smart of the Raiders, but the innuendo is easy to find.)
But again, the Broncos fan in me finds some guilty pleasure in knowing that some of our best won't be wearing Silver and Black anytime soon. The last thing I wanted was for Eric Berry to have that silly skull on the side of his helmet. (Of course, the Broncos fan in me is still a little shell-shocked at the Shanahan firing and the current dispute between McDaniel and Cutler, but that's not germane.)
To cut the long story short, it's best that we remember that we really don't know what was said or done by whom. Lane might have breached contract; Al might be blowing smoke; both might be true to their own extents. No matter how this ends, we'll still have football in the fall and the Raiders will still be dysfunctional the laughing stock of the NFL hopelessly incompetent managed by the asylum's inmates over on the West Coast, far away from Knoxville.
(Aside: when settting up this post, I noticed a lot of fun Al Davis tags. I've included a few of the cleaner ones for your viewing pleasure. Do note that I have not created any new tags for the sake of this post; all of them were done by people before me.)