Transcript of Al Davis’s press conference
“…this morning, I called Lane and told him that he no longer is the head coach of the Oakland Raiders, and I‟m dismissing him with cause. I just couldn‟t go on much longer with the, what I would call, the propaganda, the lying, that had been going on for weeks, and months, and a year, and time. He had a few questions. He says, „does that mean that I don‟t get paid?‟ I said, „That‟s what I‟m saying to you.‟ I said, „I warned you.‟ and I will go over with you people exactly how I warned him. And he asked me, „Is anyone else going to get fired or dismissed?‟ I said, „Not at this particular time.‟ He wanted to know who the head coach would be and I wouldn‟t tell him, because I hadn‟t finalized…this was about 9:30 in the morning…finalized with the gentleman that I was going to offer the opportunity to be head coach and I wouldn‟t tell him who the head coach was going to be. No sooner, that I got off the phone with him. Within five minutes, Mortensen had the story, exactly the way it went down. It could‟ve been no one else other than John Herrera and Mike Taylor to have given that story to Mortensen. And Mortensen had a couple of things in the story that got me to the point where I am that I want to talk to you about. One of the things Mortensen had in the story, is: „however, a Raiders source said that Davis privately sent the letter to Kiffin after the season‟s opening game loss to the Broncos, attempting to document that the coach approved the offseason acquisitions, of,‟ naturally all those great players that we signed or we think have a chance to be great. „A source close to Kiffin described the claim as fiction.‟ Now this is the first time that they admit to you, that there was a letter, communication, after the Denver game between the Raiders and Kiffin. For weeks, we‟d heard on television that there has been no commitment or no communication between Al Davis and Lane Kiffin except before the Denver game. Totally untrue! Totally untrue. After the Buffalo game, someone said, „Have you talked to Al Davis yet.‟ He said, „I have not talked to Al Davis personally.‟ Went all over the country, but yet the night of the Buffalo game, at the airport, he did talk to me. And we talked on several subjects which I can tell you about if you‟re interested in. So, I wasn‟t going to do this, but I am going to give you the letter that was given to Lane on the Friday before we went to Kansas City. It was after his, false accusations on a Wednesday night, about the defense belonging to Al Davis and Kiffin, and attacking Rob Ryan publicly, which was unfair, unheard of in professional football that the head coach would attack one of his assistants. But I sent him a letter, gave it to him actually, on the Friday before we went to Kansas City and Federal Expressed that letter to him and I‟d like to have John put up the first page of the letter. And if you‟ll bear with me, it‟s about three pages. Items in [ ] are where Al looked up and offered explanation to the letter. Over the past months, you have made a number of public statements that were highly critical of and designed to embarrass and discredit the organization, it‟s players and
coaches. I left you alone during training camp. The implication that when you were doing these things, in hopes that you‟d cease your immature and destructive campaign. [I wanted to make this work. I really did. I thought we had a chance, we had some great new young players, we do have some great new young players. We‟ve added some veteran players.] However, you continue to make public statements that are critical to the organization, it‟s players as a whole, as well as individual players. Such statements constitute conduct detrimental to the Raiders, and I still wish to no longer stand silently by while you continue to hurt this organization. Further, your contract is quite clear that you work subject to the direction and supervision of the General Partner, and that the General Partner has the exclusive right to do all things which is in the sole discretion or necessary to maintain and improve the club, the football organization, and there activities. [Can you see the letter up there?] I realized when I hired you that you were young and inexperienced and that there would be a learning process for you. Your mistakes on player personell and coaches were overlooked based on our patience with you, but I never dreamt that you would be untruthful in attempts and in statements in the press as well as so many other issues. Your actions are those of a coach looking to make excuses for not winning rather than a coach focused on winning. [let‟s go to the second page] For example, with the exception of Gibril Wilson, you were involved in recruiting all free agents and determining salaries for them and were explicit about your desire to sign Javon Walker and DeAngelo Hall amongst others. All were a must to sign in your eyes. Hall in particular, because he played for Greg Knapp in Atlanta and Knapp gave him high grades. Don‟t run from that now. [Coaches sometimes draft players, they make the pick, and they run from it. I believe that there are players, we live with them, they‟ve got to play for us, and no matter what you think of Al, we gotta‟ love „em. That‟s the way this world is.] I realize that you did not want to draft JaMarcus Russell. He is a great player. Get over it and coach this team on the field. That is what you were hired to do. We can win with this team. [Now why did I say that? I said it because, that was the battle at the draft, my first draft with him. About seven days before the draft, he came to me, and he didn‟t think we
should draft JaMarcus. And I told him we were going to draft JaMarcus. He had other ideas, and during the season, before this season, which I‟ll go in to it with you.] In regard to your recent fabrications to your defense. During the final cuts, you made every cut on offense and every cut on defense, except for Wakefield on defense and Wand on offense. Furthermore, during the game Monday night, Rob played your cover two defense and we got killed in aproximately a 50-yard touchdown pass and aproximately a 70-yard gain that led to a field goal. [Now he‟s never said to you people, at least he does individually, that I wrote this letter to him, and there‟s no way he could hide from it, because he got it.] You meet every week with the defensive coaches, to go over both the game plan and to get a general feel for what will happen during the week in practice. You have the ability and the authority to provide your input during those meetings and preparation of the gameplan. I do not have meetings with Rob at all, you do. During the week, no one has ever told you what to do, either offense or defense. In addition, no one has ever told you during a game what to do on either offense or defense and you still call every play. [Now in the past two years, he‟s called every play on offense, but this past week, he split it with another coach. And that‟s the reason that maybe the ball went up a little bit. But he has called..no one has bothered him, no one has interfered with him, he was hired to coach the team.] During the week, although you continue to use the media, to express your disatisfaction with others, no one has publicly pointed out to them that in four preseason games and one regular season game played this year, your offense has scored one touchdown. That put tremendous pressure on the defense. [Now we played eight games, we‟ve had two first half touchdowns, one in the preseason, one in the regular season. It‟s pretty tough for any football team, and to continuously blame the defense, you just can‟t get away with it.] I know that you wanted to bring your father in to run the defense and that Monte, [that‟s Monte Kiffin] -told me that he wanted to come here, even though he is under contract to Tampa. I did not want to tamper with another team. [In any event, we had our attorneys call Bruce Allen and tell him that Monte Kiffin, because otherwise it‟s a tampering charge, talked to me and all he talked me about was Lane, how to handle Lane and things like that, but what he really wanted to do was come here as a coach.]
In any event, that was over seven months ago. Do not now, run from the defense and your responsibilities. The letter constitutes notice, that if you violate any term of your contract, in any manner whatsoever, you will be terminated for cause. I trust that this will not occur. “This was a warning to him, that he‟s gotta‟ be a coach, he‟s gotta‟ take care of the players, he‟s gotta‟ do his job and stop complaining every day that he doesn‟t have this, he doesn‟t have that. Now, admittedly, he didn‟t think we could win with this team. This was in February, January, February, he didn‟t think we could win with this team. As we started to sign the free agents. As we started to bring them in, and no matter what anyone says about the amount of money we spent, ‟cause you don‟t always win in the negotiations with a player, you don‟t always win with a coach. The idea, most of the time, to get the player, get the good players to try and win. He finally came to the point, when he said, and he said it to some of you, that we look great on paper. Now we gotta‟ put the pieces together and make them work. And that‟s his job, but when we went to training camp, someone somewhere gave him the idea that he could get out of his job and still get paid, and that‟s what he was doing. He was everyday harping, we don‟t do this, we don‟t do that, and attacking players publicly. Agents calling me, „What‟s going on?‟ And one agent, did call him and challenged him, that this can‟t go on, what your doing to my client, just can‟t go on. We played the Buffalo game, and after the game, I uh, met him at the airport, and I asked him some questions. Talked to him about it and didn‟t think anything of it until the next day when he met with you people, and someone, one of you, I don‟t know who, maybe some of you asked him, „have you talked to Al?‟ He said, „I‟ve never talked to Al since before the Denver game.‟ It‟s all documented, but he had talked to me that night in front of the strength coach, in front of one of our publicist, and in front of one of our coaches about the game. And at that time, I asked him a couple of questions, I said to him, „Tell me somethin‟, where‟d those two time outs go? Where‟d they go?‟ and his answer was, „beyond the wall.‟ And the only thing I say to you, when I say, „beyond the wall,‟ that means beyond comprehension. I say to you, if we had 20-seconds left on the clock, and one timeout, they had kicked the field goal to go ahead by two points. And they kicked off to us, and we threw a pass and got to about their 40-yard line, after the runback of the kickoff, now Janikowski‟s trying a what? A 57-yard field goal, to win the game. Not trying a 75-yard field goal, to what? I don‟t know. What I‟m saying to you is, that there was no rhyme or reason on the clock management there. I understand that, he‟s young and the experience will come. I understand it. But see, he takes exception when you question him. I wanted to know why, we went with five safeties in the game, three corners, and we got a corner hurt in the game, and we were in a little trouble, and he put down one of our players off the dressing roster because he was gonna‟ show me that he had some authority, and he really didn‟t have the authority to do it, and I challenged him. He said,
„Well I talked to the defensive coaches.‟ A defensive coach was standing right there, and the defensive coach said, „And we told you not to do it.‟ We didn‟t want to do it‟ He put down CJ Johnson, who played in this game because we had some hurts. What I‟m saying to you is, it started to go where it was tough, tough to believe anything that was being said. Then yesterday, I think it was yesterday, someone of you asked him, „have you talked to Al?‟ And all of a sudden he said, ”I‟m not gonna‟ tell you if I‟ve talke to Al,‟ after having denied talking to me, after having denied communication, „I‟m not gonna‟ tell you what goes on between Al and I.‟ But in the past, Whohoho, he couldn‟t wait to talk about what goes on between „Al and I‟. I reached a point where I felt the whole staff were fractionalized. That the best thing to do, to get this thing back was to make a change. It hurts, because I picked the guy, I picked the wrong guy. And uh, uh, there‟s a lot more to this, a lot more to it, there‟s this business of me sending him a resignation letter. That is not the truth at all. I never sent him a resignation letter. What happened was, after the season, he told me he didn‟t want Rob Ryan. I said, „We‟re gonna‟ keep him, you got 24 coaches…‟ I think we got 24 coaches, now whether you wanna‟ believe it, I mean you can question it. Maybe we got 22 and they say someone‟s not a real coach, but it‟s almost unheard of, 24 coaches. I didn‟t want to coach or change the entire defensive staff and bring in his father. He said, „Well I can‟t win with this guy, I can‟t win with this team.‟ And we had had the problem with JaMarcus, and someday, I don‟t think it‟s important now, ‟cause I love the guy, he had JaMarcus all wrong. He had him all wrong and his thinking about him, and JaMarcus has proven a lot of you wrong, a lot of people wrong. He was gonna‟ be the overweight guy, he was gonna‟ be the uninterested guy, and he was never that way. He was always, we had a player here who played in Alabama, high school, went to the same high school that JaMarcus and was telling me about JaMarcus when JaMarcus was 12-years old. We had a player here who was a great player at Tennessee, when they won the Naional Championship, Tee Martin a quarterback, and he played at the same high school as JaMarcus, so I knew that JaMarcus wasn‟t that kind of kid. But, he said, „We can‟t win. We gotta‟ get a rookie quarterback to win. We can‟t win with this.‟ So I said to him, „What do you mean you can‟t win?‟ And he said, „Well, we can‟t win.‟ And I said, „Then do the honorable thing. If you don‟t think you can win, resign. If you don‟t think you can win resign. I don‟t know what you‟re talking about.‟ So, he was after a job in college that he didn‟t get. And it‟s amazing how Bobby Petrino took the job. They had called me, he didn‟t realize they had called me. A friend of mine who‟s very big at the University of Arkansas, called me and said, „They‟re interested in Lane Kiffin. What do you think?‟ I said, „Let him finish the season, and do what you want, whatever he wants. Finish the season.‟ They said, „O.k., we‟ll wait.‟ However, Petrino had a chance to get the job and that‟s why he, really, left Atlanta sooner than the season was over, because he wanted to beat Lane for the job. Lane was upset as hell about it, and went after some other job. And Lane said to me this, „Will you let me go
and not ask for any penalties if I leave and go to a college job, or go to another job.‟ I said, „Lane, if you say that you‟re not gonna‟ get paid, if you‟re gonna‟ resign, I‟ll certainly let you go right after the season.‟ His attorney, Uberstein, and our attorney, Jeff Biren, worked out the language and it was about a quarter of a page. And all it says was, „Lane Kiffin resigns his job with the Oakland Raiders and is expecting no remuneration, or is it renumeration? And the Raiders will take no action to stop him based on this contract.‟ That was the story of what he called, supposedly, he‟s gotten Mortensen. Mortensen comes he lies, he‟s a professional liar, and he got Mortensen to say that I sent him the letter, which I never did and a lot of you carried the fact that I sent him a letter. So, what I‟m saying to you is that this is regretful, but I thought it was best for the Raiders, and I wanted to make it work because I want the Raider to do great. Someone said to me the other day, a newspaper man, „Why don‟t you tell us your side of the story? Why don‟t you tell us what‟s happening?‟ And I said to him, „Look, I don‟t want to win in the press, I want to win on the field.‟ But I‟m telling you because I had to regretfully let him go, and it‟s based on cause, and it‟s not based on necessarily, performance, because I understand what we‟re doing. Although, I think we could do better. I assume there‟s a lot more. What I wanted to say, is, we signed DeAngelo Hall, Gibril Wilson, Kalimba Edwards, Tommy Kelly, Javon Walker, Kwame Harris, Justin Fargas, Darren McFadden. They were the high-priced people this year. Not everyone has been a factor, but you gotta‟ stick with players. I remember last year, all during training camp, and it was tough on me, because I didn‟t want to do it. We traded Randy Moss for a fourth round draft choice. Randy Moss for a fourth round draft choice. And everyone here, coaches look at the film, his foot was bothering him, everyone around the country, that he can‟t run anymore. Well I‟d seen him, I go to practice, I had seen him run, they talk now, „Boy if we had a playmaker.‟ Well, all he caught was over 20 touchdowns last year, if we had a playmaker, but those are the facts of life. We‟ve had some great players come through here. In 2003, 2004, Rich Gannon went down with knee injuries, we let Kerry Collins go, he‟s driving Tennesse pretty good right now. We‟ll get back. We‟ll be back. The Raiders will be back. That‟s uh…I have unshakeable confidence, the will to win, and I just know that the fire that burns brightest in this building is the will to win and we will win. We will win.”