Lane Kiffin's Biggest Fear: That He'll Be Stuck in Oakland All Season

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I suspected things were pretty bad in the Raiders organization, but apparently it's worse than anybody not forced to work there ever imagined. Yahoo.com's Jason Cole has a revealing account of the absurdity of it all, and he makes what should be an obvious point about head coach-for-the-moment Lane Kiffin's situation.

The scuttlebutt has Kiffin getting canned any minute now, although the Raiders' convincing win in Kansas City last week may have bought him some time. Thing is, maybe Kiffin doesn't want the job as much as owner Al Davis doesn't want him to have it.

"That's the funny part about people asking if he's worried about getting fired," said a source close to Kiffin. "He's worried that he might be stuck there the whole season."

And then there's this revelation:

Or as former Cowboys and Dolphins coach Jimmy Johnson, now a FOX analyst, said last weekend: "I don't know that there's a lot of people who would want to work there. It's a mess and it's been a mess for quite some time, I just don't know how anybody functions in that type of atmosphere. They do have some good young players and they showed that ... I think eventually this team will be one to be dealt with but as far as being a coach there, being an assistant coach, being someone in administration, it really is a mess."

And Denny Greenreadily agrees. But it's more than the head coach; it's all about Davis's insistence on living in the past at the expense of fielding a god-awful team in the present. Rich Gannon, the last Raiders quarterback to lead the team to a winning record, explains how things are much, much different in Oakland than anywhere else in the NFL.

"When I played in Kansas City, all I had to do was walk in the door. I didn't have to worry about guys showing up late for practice or meetings, guys being out drinking until 3 a.m. or missing curfew the night before games. In Kansas City, that stuff didn't happen. In Oakland, it was an everyday occurrence."

And that, people, is how an organization posts five consecutive 11-loss seasons, and a 20-26 record over that time.

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