Haters Out In Full Force

[Sleet]

Amazing. It is almost as if these are canned articles, ready for the first sign of dysfunction. No, Tim can't right about the 31-10 victory over Dallas, how Cable's got the team thinking team, how the coaching staff appears to be getting their message through to the players, etc., it this garbage, taking Nancy Gay's word over Schefter, etc., and writing a story about a story, with his typical hater spin.

Kawakami: It's no surprise that Raiders are fighting
By Tim Kawakami
Mercury News Columnist

They don't want to be screwed up. They don't want to fight among themselves (though they're addicted to fighting everybody else).

They don't want to keep reproducing the definition of a losing atmosphere, filled with the defeated, the paranoid, the over-promoted and the frantically pugilistic.

But here they are, assaulting each other once again and on their way to many more losses once again. It's the Raiders way these days.

If you heard an unnamed head coach for an NFL team had cold-cocked an assistant hard enough for a hospital visit and police report, would you guess anybody else except Tom Cable and the Raiders?

Of course not.

We don't know the full details of the early-August incident at the Napa Valley Marriott that possibly fractured defensive assistant Randy Hanson's jaw.

There's a police report, we know, that mentions a victim, identified by several reports as Hanson, and the victim's statement that he was punched by a fellow coach.

The victim also did not want to name the coach or press charges, according to the police report.

And we know that Fanhouse's Nancy Gay reported that the punch was from Cable, that it was apparently a blindside punch.

ESPN's Mark Schlereth reported Monday night that Cable told him "nothing happened" between him and Hanson. So believe whom you want to believe — somebody pounded Hanson's jaw, and it was somebody Hanson did not want to be prosecuted.

If it was Cable, we don't know what set him off, if he apologized to Hanson, if Hanson had done something wrong or if there will be a criminal prosecution of Cable.

We know several players made light of the incident by chanting "Cable, bumaye" during pre-practice stretches, harkening to the crowd chant for Muhammad Ali before his fight in Zaire against George Foreman.

Loosely translated: "Cable, kill him."

We know that Cable is known around coaching circles as a free spirit, which is not uncommon for longtime offensive-line coaches. And we know that a bit of NFL intra-staff scuffling is acceptable "... as long as it does not involve the police or the head coach.

But Cable is the head coach. He's only a head coach because Al Davis couldn't get anybody else to take the job, of course; nevertheless, Cable has the job.

Even if he isn't acting like he has the job. Maybe that was part of the argument? Maybe they're all so far over their heads that nobody is sure what Al wants them to do these days, so it's a free-for-all?

You know, boys will be boys. And the Raiders will always be messed up.

We know that Cable refused to discuss his new UFC tactics after practice in Napa on Monday, saying three times that it was "an internal matter."

Internal bleeding?

We know that New England, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh and every other team that has succeeded in the past six seasons somehow manages to keep the head coach from pummeling smaller assistants into a pulp.

Meanwhile, the Raiders have lost 11 games or more in each of the past six seasons.

Gee, you think there's a relationship between losing and franchise-wide disarray?

It's the atmosphere that Davis has set up. It's his atmosphere. His paranoia. His rules.

We know that the Raiders have had a few of these, from Bill Romanowski's cheap-shot blasting of Marcus Williams during a 2003 practice to the non-physical, but just as furious, intra-office squabbling between Art Shell and Mike Lombardi in 2006.

Davis did nothing about Shell vs. Lombardi while it went on, then fired both men after the season was done. That's probably the most likely option this time around — Cable limps through 2009, and if it's another 5-11, he's gone.

Let's not even get deep into Hanson's history as Davis' coaching minion. Hanson is the minor staffer who ripped Lane Kiffin during Kiffin's final days there and whom Davis backed to the hilt.

This is just not normal stuff. This is a crazed franchise, no matter what the scared Raiders employees scream at everybody else. This is actually what makes them scream with such tortured cluelessness.

Just ask anybody who used to work there and has now escaped. Some of them escaped with only psychic wounds. If they were lucky.

Read Tim Kawakami's Talking Points blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/kawakami. Contact him at tkawakami@mercurynews.com or 408-920-5442.

[SoCalRaider]

There's a police report, we know, that mentions a victim, identified by several reports as Hanson, and the victim's statement that he was punched by a fellow coach.


So now both the police report (reportedly) and the medical report (confirmed) both state that Hanson was clocked.

Damn.... and I was really hoping there would be some truth to that shit about him getting his grill smashed by the freakin cabinet.

[Sleet]

So now both the police report (reportedly) and the medical report (confirmed) both state that Hanson was clocked.

Damn.... and I was really hoping there would be some truth to that shit about him getting his grill smashed by the freakin cabinet.

That's right, Schefter (the rumor monger himself), Mort (who publically hates on Al) and Glazer all are covering for Al and Cable and saying a sucker punch didn't happen. Yea, that makes a lot of sense, too. Funny, Nancy Gay cited "two" sources, not the police report, that a sucker punched occured. If you've seen the police report, post it.

[Throne Raider]

The latest Anti-Raider, Extreme Hater. Cohn is a punk Whiner fan who was, as a young man, probably at a RAider Niner Game wearing his little red cap standing at the urinal when he got bumped and pissed on himself, resulting in a life filled with shame and self loathing



The latest fun and games, as you know, took place at their Napa Fortress of Solitude when head coach Tom Cable (um, allegedly) slugged assistant coach Randy Hanson and (um, allegedly) broke his jaw, which makes Cable a jaw breaker. Or do I mean knucklehead?

When asked late Monday if he punched his coach in the kisser, Cable replied, “It’s an internal issue.”

It is an internal issue except when it’s an external issue. Now it’s an external issue.

It has been incorrectly reported that the Napa authorities cannot pursue criminal charges against Cable unless Hanson, who seems to have developed lockjaw, actually names Cable as the assailant. I checked with an expert in these matters and he told me, “That’s ridiculous.”

You see, a crime is a crime, and it doesn’t matter if Hanson presses charges or not. If the law wants to pursue this, it can put Hanson on the witness stand under oath and ask who did the punching BULLSHIT. In Superior Court you cannot force anyone to talk on the stand or punish them for refusing. He's confusing this with federal Grand Jury where you can give the witness immunity then nail them for contempt. Applies to co-conspirators---not victims.

Which leads me to a question: If Cable gets convicted of assault and battery — it sure seems like this was an assault with or without a battery — and if Cable goes to the slammer, can he coach the Raiders from behind bars?

We’ve all seen baseball managers get thrown out of a game and we know they manage from the runway or clubhouse via cell phone. If Cable goes to the pokey, can he coach the Raiders via cell phone from the exercise yard or while cleaning the latrine, or would he actually have to see the game? I wish someone in the know would look into this.

What does this latest incident teach us about the Raiders? Well, they have a highly stable situation over there in the wilds of Napa. The coaching staff clearly is a model of harmony and organization for the players, and the fact the coach hasn’t yet been arrested should give Raiders fans confidence this team can win at least four of 16 games this season.

It is being reported Cable sucker punched Hanson, always a brave act. And that leads me to three pertinent (impertinent?) questions: If the rumor of the sucker punch is true, does that make Cable a punk? Does it make him a potential felon? Does it make him the perfect Raiders coach?

Answer: All of the above.

I always have felt Cable looks like a guy who drives a beer truck — nothing against beer-truck drivers and I’m not saying all beer-truck drivers are jaw breakers. It’s just you don’t expect them to coach professional athletes. After he gets fired, I see Cable driving a Coors truck in Livermore or Cloverdale.

Hanson is not currently with the team and probably won’t return. He’s clearly afraid to open his trap about what really happened because he doesn’t want to get blacklisted in the NFL. Expect the Raiders to pay him off and send him on his way.

All this and the season hasn’t even started yet.

What a barrel of laughs those Raiders are. After one Raiders executive verbally attacked a writer last season, I wrote I wouldn’t accept the Nobel Prize for Literature if I no longer could write about the Raiders. Now you see why. The Raiders just keep on giving.

If you want to see what I mean, go on any sports Web site — any — and read comments by Raiders fans about Cable’s haymaker. Some Raiders fans fell in love with the guy because of his sucker punch. They think he’s instilling discipline and toughness in the Raiders. They think he’s a hero. One intellectual wrote, “This deserves a breaking news alert? There was less damage than a bar fight?”

Good point. No one got killed or lost an eye. It takes more than a mere broken jaw to impress a Raiders fan. If the Raiders really want to make a stir, they should offer a human sacrifice at halftime of their next game.

Another thoughtful Raiders fans wrote, “Must be a slow news day.”

He meant the papers are pathetic because they have nothing better to write about than Cable the Pugilist. Sure. Right. Absolutely. It’s never news when a head coach busts an assistant’s chin and the assistant goes to the hospital and the cops get involved and the assistant clams up in terror and no one in the organization will say a word. Kind of reminds you of the “Godfather” – the code of silence and “Don’t forget the cannoli.”

One wit wrote, “Good thing he didn’t punch a dog or he’d really be in trouble.”

Have you noticed Raiders fans are different from all other fans? I’m not talking about all Raiders fans, just some. These beauts take pride in incidents like this. From their informed point of view, it’s merely business as usual for their beloved team.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular go to the Cohn Zohn at blog.pressdemocrat.com/cohn. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.

[JR8DER]

How many threads do we need about this?

[Birdwell]

JR8DER, this is anot about the incident, per se, but the way some in the media have reacted to it.

What a perfect litmus test to tell the reporters from the agendra-driven Raider haters.

The only facts we (in all probability) know are that Randy Hanson has a broken jaw. And, given that people don't break their jaws by crunching down on a jawbreaker or other food, and that the most likely (but not only) way for someone to break their jaw, the hospital filed a police report on a possible assault.

From this, we have a bunch of sources telling different stories -- and here's where it gets interesting. Different people have different sources -- not totally independent, but in many cases seldom overlapping. For example, in Washington, DC some guys on the intelligence beat have most of their contacts within the CIA, while other guys may scatter them between NSC staffers, the CIA, the DIA, INR, NSA and retired people from some of the above with access inside. Others are in between. What this allows is for sources to "leak" stories to friendly reporters that have little news value but are merely ways of making a bureaucratic fight public.

Nancy Gay, Lowell Cohn, and to a slightly lesser extent, Tim Kawakami don't like the Raiders much, and have made hay over the past six years of ineptitude. That's how they see it, and like unthinking people everywhere how it was last year is the way it will be forever. So they cultivate sources who think the same way -- or the sources cultivate them. Nancy Gay double-sourced her story -- whatever that's worth, it is the standard for reporting -- and so other reporters who want to will run with it.

But not everyone has it in for the Raiders. Schlereth, Mort, Schefter and others have done negative pieces on the Raiders in the past, and rely on old cliches about the team and organization. This, however, is a felony, not just odd organizational structure or ineptitude on the field. You don't just accuse people of felonies based on the say-so of someone with along demonstrated bias. Hell, it's like accepting Ahmad Chelabi's word that there were WMD in Iraq. (Chelabi spent his adult life in opposition to the regime of Saddam Hussein, and is connected with a group that launches terrorist attacks in Turkey, but he said what some people wanted to hear in order to help his own agenda -- and they bought it hook line and sinker.)

Gay either got used by her sources or she wrote the story she wanted to write, or both. Because it passed the double-source test, Cohn and Kawakami ran with it.

Now, it'll be interesting to see what happens, in the media. I'm satisfied that the national people -- who have a lot more on the line than a bunch of local reporters, and are held to higher standards of reporting by their networks -- are correct. But if anyone put in print that I'd committed a felony when I hadn't. I'd be looking at a defemation of character lawsuit. Cable is only a semi-public figure, and I don't think that would give the haters an argument. Then, their bias would actually become a subject of trial for fact in a civil court, where the standard is not reasonable doubt but preponderance of evidence.

[DarkDays]

Tri

All that cocksucker wants is his balls back. Give Kawakami his balls back Al.


Amazing. It is almost as if these are canned articles, ready for the first sign of dysfunction. No, Tim can't right about the 31-10 victory over Dallas, how Cable's got the team thinking team, how the coaching staff appears to be getting their message through to the players, etc., it this garbage, taking Nancy Gay's word over Schefter, etc., and writing a story about a story, with his typical hater spin.

Kawakami: It's no surprise that Raiders are fighting
By Tim Kawakami
Mercury News Columnist

They don't want to be screwed up. They don't want to fight among themselves (though they're addicted to fighting everybody else).

They don't want to keep reproducing the definition of a losing atmosphere, filled with the defeated, the paranoid, the over-promoted and the frantically pugilistic.

But here they are, assaulting each other once again and on their way to many more losses once again. It's the Raiders way these days.

If you heard an unnamed head coach for an NFL team had cold-cocked an assistant hard enough for a hospital visit and police report, would you guess anybody else except Tom Cable and the Raiders?

Of course not.

We don't know the full details of the early-August incident at the Napa Valley Marriott that possibly fractured defensive assistant Randy Hanson's jaw.

There's a police report, we know, that mentions a victim, identified by several reports as Hanson, and the victim's statement that he was punched by a fellow coach.

The victim also did not want to name the coach or press charges, according to the police report.

And we know that Fanhouse's Nancy Gay reported that the punch was from Cable, that it was apparently a blindside punch.

ESPN's Mark Schlereth reported Monday night that Cable told him "nothing happened" between him and Hanson. So believe whom you want to believe — somebody pounded Hanson's jaw, and it was somebody Hanson did not want to be prosecuted.

If it was Cable, we don't know what set him off, if he apologized to Hanson, if Hanson had done something wrong or if there will be a criminal prosecution of Cable.

We know several players made light of the incident by chanting "Cable, bumaye" during pre-practice stretches, harkening to the crowd chant for Muhammad Ali before his fight in Zaire against George Foreman.

Loosely translated: "Cable, kill him."

We know that Cable is known around coaching circles as a free spirit, which is not uncommon for longtime offensive-line coaches. And we know that a bit of NFL intra-staff scuffling is acceptable "... as long as it does not involve the police or the head coach.

But Cable is the head coach. He's only a head coach because Al Davis couldn't get anybody else to take the job, of course; nevertheless, Cable has the job.

Even if he isn't acting like he has the job. Maybe that was part of the argument? Maybe they're all so far over their heads that nobody is sure what Al wants them to do these days, so it's a free-for-all?

You know, boys will be boys. And the Raiders will always be messed up.

We know that Cable refused to discuss his new UFC tactics after practice in Napa on Monday, saying three times that it was "an internal matter."

Internal bleeding?

We know that New England, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh and every other team that has succeeded in the past six seasons somehow manages to keep the head coach from pummeling smaller assistants into a pulp.

Meanwhile, the Raiders have lost 11 games or more in each of the past six seasons.

Gee, you think there's a relationship between losing and franchise-wide disarray?

It's the atmosphere that Davis has set up. It's his atmosphere. His paranoia. His rules.

We know that the Raiders have had a few of these, from Bill Romanowski's cheap-shot blasting of Marcus Williams during a 2003 practice to the non-physical, but just as furious, intra-office squabbling between Art Shell and Mike Lombardi in 2006.

Davis did nothing about Shell vs. Lombardi while it went on, then fired both men after the season was done. That's probably the most likely option this time around — Cable limps through 2009, and if it's another 5-11, he's gone.

Let's not even get deep into Hanson's history as Davis' coaching minion. Hanson is the minor staffer who ripped Lane Kiffin during Kiffin's final days there and whom Davis backed to the hilt.

This is just not normal stuff. This is a crazed franchise, no matter what the scared Raiders employees scream at everybody else. This is actually what makes them scream with such tortured cluelessness.

Just ask anybody who used to work there and has now escaped. Some of them escaped with only psychic wounds. If they were lucky.

Read Tim Kawakami's Talking Points blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/kawakami. Contact him at tkawakami@mercurynews.com or 408-920-5442.

[Sleet]

How many threads do we need about this?

I saw your post, apparently even one was too many for you. ;)

[Crow]

How many threads do we need about this?

This.

[Sleet]

JR8DER, this is anot about the incident, per se, but the way some in the media have reacted to it.

What a perfect litmus test to tell the reporters from the agendra-driven Raider haters.

The only facts we (in all probability) know are that Randy Hanson has a broken jaw. And, given that people don't break their jaws by crunching down on a jawbreaker or other food, and that the most likely (but not only) way for someone to break their jaw, the hospital filed a police report on a possible assault.

From this, we have a bunch of sources telling different stories -- and here's where it gets interesting. Different people have different sources -- not totally independent, but in many cases seldom overlapping. For example, in Washington, DC some guys on the intelligence beat have most of their contacts within the CIA, while other guys may scatter them between NSC staffers, the CIA, the DIA, INR, NSA and retired people from some of the above with access inside. Others are in between. What this allows is for sources to "leak" stories to friendly reporters that have little news value but are merely ways of making a bureaucratic fight public.

Nancy Gay, Lowell Cohn, and to a slightly lesser extent, Tim Kawakami don't like the Raiders much, and have made hay over the past six years of ineptitude. That's how they see it, and like unthinking people everywhere how it was last year is the way it will be forever. So they cultivate sources who think the same way -- or the sources cultivate them. Nancy Gay double-sourced her story -- whatever that's worth, it is the standard for reporting -- and so other reporters who want to will run with it.

But not everyone has it in for the Raiders. Schlereth, Mort, Schefter and others have done negative pieces on the Raiders in the past, and rely on old cliches about the team and organization. This, however, is a felony, not just odd organizational structure or ineptitude on the field. You don't just accuse people of felonies based on the say-so of someone with along demonstrated bias. Hell, it's like accepting Ahmad Chelabi's word that there were WMD in Iraq. (Chelabi spent his adult life in opposition to the regime of Saddam Hussein, and is connected with a group that launches terrorist attacks in Turkey, but he said what some people wanted to hear in order to help his own agenda -- and they bought it hook line and sinker.)

Gay either got used by her sources or she wrote the story she wanted to write, or both. Because it passed the double-source test, Cohn and Kawakami ran with it.

Now, it'll be interesting to see what happens, in the media. I'm satisfied that the national people -- who have a lot more on the line than a bunch of local reporters, and are held to higher standards of reporting by their networks -- are correct. But if anyone put in print that I'd committed a felony when I hadn't. I'd be looking at a defemation of character lawsuit. Cable is only a semi-public figure, and I don't think that would give the haters an argument. Then, their bias would actually become a subject of trial for fact in a civil court, where the standard is not reasonable doubt but preponderance of evidence.

Exactly.

Nice job Bird.

[GRIM]

This is just an attack against the Raiders to take the emphisis off of the can of Whoop Ass they opened up against Dallas.

Whoever contrived this story is going to hell. :pound: