After one of the most bizarre press conferences ever seen in the history of man (unedited video via KPIX here and here), Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis continued to hold court with reporters in the press room. According to Tim Kawkami of the San Jose Mercury-News he does this after presser and the comments are actually better afterwards. In Fact Kawkami says he doesn’t ask any questions during the press conference because he gets better answers from Davis afterwards during his BS sessions with the media.
In Kawkami’s blog he has the transcript of the post-press conference, press conference. In that gathering Davis continued to take shots at former head coach Lane Kiffin saying he conned him and the media, shots at former head coach Mike Shannon going as far as to call him a cheater and that his two Super Bowls were tainted but gave no explanation as to why they are. He even went on a rant about how the New England Patriots acquired WR Randy Moss and that they tampered with him.
Q: Why did you trade Moss if you knew he was good?
-DAVIS: They didn’t want him.
-Q: They?-DAVIS: Not the coaches. They were coming in brand new. That was a big thing on their minds.
Plus, you know how many teams turned him down. That guy in Green Bay thought he couldn’t run any more. Even Denver, where they’ll take anybody, turned him down.
But what’s his name knew he could run, he’s a friend of Belichick’s. Mike Lombardi. Mike sold what’s his name, Belichick, on the idea that he could run. They tampered with him. I remember Bob Kraft saying that he had to look him in the eye and all that. They went down and worked him out, he could run. He’s their team, of course, with the quarterback.
Mike Reiss of the Boston Globe recalls Belichick’s comments after they acquired Moss on Draft Day last year:
“It was a situation last night where we talked to the Raiders after the draft. We felt like if we were going to do a pick that was in today’s round that we would need to get that rolling last night and the wheels started spinning pretty fast. Mr. [Al] Davis gave us permission to speak with the player and his representatives so that happened last night,” Belichick said at the time.
“I talked with Randy and he came in this morning and we got that taken care of. His representatives and Scott [Pioli] worked out the negotiations. So we are happy to add him to our roster. I feel like he is a player that gives us a lot of quality, has a lot of experience, is a versatile player, and can do a lot of different things for us on the football field in the passing game. So that was that.”
It’s really sad to see someone lose their mind in most cases but seeing as it’s Al Davis it’s a beautiful thing. Raiders fans deserve this guy. He even brought up the Tuck Rule call again saying “it was the undoing of a lot of things”. Maybe he was referring to former head coach Jon Gruden leaving for Tampa Bay and them hiring BIll Callahan which led to the franchises downfall. Who knows. It’s just funny how nearly 7 years later he and his fans still whine about the tuck call but no one remembers the 1976 AFC Divisional game and how Ben Dreith and his crew screwed the Patriots in Oakland when they flagged Ray Hamilton for roughing Kenny Stabler. As they say “Karma’s a bitch” and right now Karma is sticking it pretty good to Crazy Al and company.
Who else can’t wait for when the Patriots visit Oakland on December 14th?
