Clowning around with the Raiders

Say, it's a Friday morning and you wake up grumpy. Maybe you slept on your left side, and your left knee, the one you hurt snowboarding, was acting up, and now you feel crummy, could use a giggle.

Then you think of the Raiders. A smile crosses your lips. The Raiders give you the giggle you require because they are the NFL's joke franchise. They are the team that keeps on giving. What do the Raiders give? Comic relief.

This being a Friday morning -- I hope not a grumpy one for you -- let's take stock of the Raiders, who should change their logo from that pirate to a clown. As of today, the Raiders either do or don't have a head coach. "It's March, Al, and where's your head coach?"

We know Al Davis tried to dump Lane Kiffin. There was that letter of resignation Al tried to jam down the kid coach's throat. Kiffin regurgitated the letter. We assume Al is working on a buyout. In the weird funny world of the Raiders, where no normal logic applies, this would be logical.

Let's pause a moment for a wacky Raiders aside. When Al introduced Kiffin to the media last year, Davis called Lane Kiffin Lance Kiffin. You know that, right? All year, I referred to Lane as Lance. I couldn't help myself. It was part of the hilarity. I mean, Al didn't even know his coach's name. A friend of mine -- a columnist for another paper -- went on TV to discuss the Raiders and right there on camera he called Lane Lance. "It was your fault," he later told me, laughing. I guess it was my fault.

But it's not my fault the Raiders are pure comedy.

Anyway, it's fair to assume there will be a buyout, although it seems awfully late to bring in a new coach now. The two frontrunners for next sucker coach are Rob Ryan and James Lofton. Ryan is the hefty defensive coordinator Lance tried to dump before he himself got semi-dumped. Are you following this?

Switch to Bill Walsh. When Bill was in the hospital -- dying, sad -- we would talk on the phone and sometimes, if he needed cheering up, he'd say, "Let's talk about the Raiders." I could hear the laugh in his voice. He was not feeling malice. He was feeling the fun -- the pure giddiness of the Raiders. He liked and admired Al, but he saw what was going on with the Silver and Black and, well, it was wackiness to the max.

I bring up Bill because a moment ago I brought up Rob Ryan. One day Bill said to me, "What do you think of that defensive coordinator?"

I could see where this was going. I said something like, "You mean the heavy-set guy?"

"Yeah, that's the one."

Bill, who always was proud of his appearance, said the guy didn't cut the right image for a coach of athletes. I asked if Ryan could have been a coach on Bill's staff. That's when Bill started chuckling. "No way," he said, although he didn't say, "No way." He uttered an exclamation I'm not allowed to print in this paper.

Which means Ryan could be a terrific Raiders head coach because he fits into the belly-laugh joke mold. Lofton would be good, too. He has absolutely no head-coaching experience -- an increasingly essential requirement for Raiders head man.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter what qualifications the head coach has or doesn't have. Each coach lasts one season -- Al should introduce each new coach as "this year's coach." Al gushes over the guy at the intro press conference, even if he forgets the name, and then in a month or so hates the guy and, in the worst-case scenario, sends the poison-pen letter.

I don't want you to think the Raiders giggles begin and end with the coach. There are giggles all around. The Raiders were active in the free-agent market and agreed to a $50 million contract with defensive tackle Tommy Kelly. No knock against Kelly who played pretty well last season before getting hurt, but that's mucho moolah for an undrafted free agent who's never reached his potential. With Al it's all or nothing, cheap or lavish, no sense of proportion.

The Raiders signed offensive tackle Kwame Harris -- something like 3 million big ones for a guy who had trouble getting on the field for the Niners. Raiders fans know about Harris. Everyone knows. He couldn't block you. In some quarters, he'd be called a joke. Oh, I could go on. Al overpaid for receiver Javon Walker, who's been hurt and can't seem to keep a job, but you get the point.

OK, this is where the joke ends. You don't know whether to laugh or cry. You imagine Al sitting at an old wooden roll-top desk in the attic of the Raiders facility. You see cobwebs. The room has one tiny window that hardly lets in light. On the walls he's pasted newspaper articles about Ken Stabler and Gene Upshaw and Jim Plunkett and Super Bowls won. The newsprint is brittle and yellow. Seated at his desk, Al stares straight ahead. He stares.

You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at 521-5486 or lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.