From Pro Football Talk:

Davis’ death certificate states that he died at the Oakland Airport Hilton at 2:45 a.m. on October 8 from congestive heart failure, cardiomyopathy, and ventricular fibrillation. Davis’ heart is believed to have begun to fail just 24 hours before his passing, “likely from five years of living with heart disease.”The document also shows that Davis had throat surgery on October 5 and was suffering from Markel cell carcinoma, a form of skin cancer obtained from sun exposure.

From profootballtalk.nbcsports.com (share this quote)

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He’s doing a great job this morning covering the passing of Davis. Here is a sample:

An independent man like Al Davis could only have been born on the 4th of July. The iconic owner’s tragic passing comes as a shock only in the sense that it seemed he’d always be at the helm of the Raider ship.Today, the flag of Raider Nation is at half-staff.The sports world has lost one of the most legendary and accomplished individuals in history. The football world is without one of the greatest minds to ever enter the game.

From justblogbaby.com (share this quote)

Head over to Just Blog Baby for more on Davis and the loss from the Raiders’ point of view.

The former AFL Commisioner has been one of the most colorful characters in the NFL for well over 40 years.

Things haven’t been going so well for the Raiders over the last ten years and now it appears they have lost thier franchise icon just as the team seems to be rising back to prominence. Love him or hate him, Al Davis has been a fixture in the NFL and the AFC west for a long time.

It will certainly be interesting to see how the Raiders organization moves forward. It is hard to imagine them without Al Davis.

I will say this, Al Davis made our favorite football rivalry more fun. He was a great foe/villain, especially back in the day. RIP Al.

Goodell and Kraft talk Shoots and Ladder's Strategy

NFL owners, Commissioner Roger Goodell and a few of their lawyers are all getting together in Chicago today to hold the creepiest slumber party in the history of slumber parties.

Actually they are meeting to discuss the current labor negotiations with the players but everyone was told to pack a bag as the meetings are expected to last a couple of days. While the official start of the meeting is today, there are reports that some of the owners met as early as last night.

The general consensus seems to be that the owners will be trying to get on the same page so that they can hammer out a deal with the players in the next couple of weeks. There have been some reports that a few of the owners are not happy with the current course of labor negotiations and that they believe the negotiating team, that includes Chiefs’ owner Clark Hunt, are giving up too much ground. The hope seems to be that the negotiation team can get the rest of the owners behind a plan so that the next time they meet, they be voting on a new agreement.

The time has definitely come for the owners to bend a little. Too much money is at stake for them to continue to try to strong-arm the players into a deal. Both sides seem to be willing to get something done if the recent positive reports out of the negotiations are any indication. That means this meeting is a chance for the owners at the table to get the rest of their colleagues on board.

While I am happy the owners are meeting in an effort to move things forward, I can’t help but be creeped out by the idea of an NFL owner slumber party. I was even more disturbed when NFL PR sent me the meeting minutes as of early this morning.

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Plax meets with loved ones after getting out of the slam. (Photo from Albert Breer via Twitter)

Former New York Giants WR Plaxico Burres was released from prison today.

Burres was greeted by, who else, his agent Drew Rosenhaus.

I suppose Rosenhaus figures he can get one more payday out of the embattled receiver. Personally, I think signing a 33 year-old WR who just spend a couple of years in the clink is absolutely bananas. I mean, I’d be weary of signing any 33 year-old WR so the fact that Plax hasn’t played in so long makes him an even bigger risk.

Still, with Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis still roaming the earth collecting souls for the Prince of Darkness, there is always a chance Plax will be the latest victim to fall into the black hole.

If not Davis, someone will likely take a chance on the former first round pick. The question is, do you think it should be the Kansas City Chiefs?

No, the world didn’t end on Saturday—the reports of the Rapture and our impending demise were greatly exaggerated. But the pictures we saw the next day from Joplin, and have been seeing for weeks from Alabama and Mississippi (and now also Kansas and Iowa and Minnesota), look more than enough like a real Armageddon.

When tornadoes tore through Alabama, it got our attention; we were all touched and even inspired by Javier Arenas‘s story of survival and singular mission to help others, as detailed in Lars Anderson’s recent Sports Illustrated cover story. When a mile-wide twister, the single deadliest in the U.S. in almost 60 years, mangled Joplin on Sunday, the story hit much closer to home, literally for some, as those members of our AA team and their families felt the anguish first hand. I’m sure that’s true, too, for many of you out there.

I remember that when I read how Alabama head football coach Nick Saban was encouraging his players to reach out to the people of Tuscaloosa—“Just by your presence and being with them, you can help people,” he said—I was cynical at first. Perhaps because while Arenas’s first move after cheating death was to load up his SUV with $1,600 worth of supplies to hand out, Saban hasn’t yet announced how much of his $4.15 million salary for the 2011 season will be earmarked for disaster relief. Or maybe because the focus seemed to be on sports as a temporarily helpful but otherwise superficial distraction: “We can create a psychological escape for the people of this town,” Saban told SI. “They have a great passion for sports, and we’ll be there for them.”

Sure, sports are and can be a healthy diversion, especially in times like this, what another SI reporter, writing days after September 11, 2001, likened to “pulling a blanket over your head when you’re a kid—suddenly the world goes away and nothing outside that little space even exists; it’s delicious.” But that’s just the game. And being a fan extends beyond the game. There’s something much more important going on here, and we’re starting to see it.

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The Oakland Raiders are certainly an improving and dangerous football team but their recent decision to re-sign Richard Seymour may slow their rise back to prominence.

In September of 2009, the Raiders traded their 2011 first round pick for DT Richard Seymour just a month before his 30^th birthday. Now don’t get me wrong, Seymour is still a very good player and he was when the Raiders traded for him. The problem with the trade and the reason it was viewed by many as foolish is because it was a move that would typically made by a Super Bowl contender looking for the final piece of the puzzle, not a league bottom feeder suffering through a decade of futility. The odds that Seymour would be able to help the Raiders reach a Super Bowl before his play began to decline looked slim.

Fast forward a couple of years and the Raiders are certainly a team on the rise. They swept the AFC West in 2010 but were unable to play as consistently against lesser foes. That inconsistency cost Oakland a chance at the playoffs and the AFC West title instead went to the surprise Kansas City Chiefs, a team they beat twice during the season.

The Raiders entered a critical offseason this year and kicked things off by firing head coach Tom Cable. I originally criticized the decision to fire Cable because of the continued instability another coaching change would bring to the organization, however the promotion of offensive coordinator Hue Jackson provided as seamless a transition the Raiders could have hoped for.

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Source: pyromaniac.com

ESPN.com is reporting that Bengals QB Carson Palmer plans to request to be traded by the Cincinnati Bengals and will threaten retirement if his demands are not met.

The Kansas City Chiefs appear to have found their man in QB Matt Cassel, at least for 2011, however there are other teams in the division that are unsettled at QB that could be interested in Palmer.

Raiders owner Al Davis appears to be in love with Jason Campbell but he is also known to be a crazy old codger with a weakness for over the hill big name stars and fast receivers who can’t catch. Davis may be saying publicly that he is behind Campbell but if he thinks Carson Palmer is a better QB i wouldn’t be surprised to see him flush Campbell down the toilet and trade away picks to the Bengals for Palmer.

Is it a long shot?

No. Not with Al Davis. As long as Al Davis is running the Raiders, Ronald McDonald playing QB for Oakland isn’t a long shot.

More after the jump.

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This is Al Davis at a press conference a few years ago. Believe it or not, compared to how he looked yesterday, he looks fantastic here.

Here at Arrowhead Addict we don’t like Al Davis. He is the owner of the Oakland Raiders and we are fans of the Kansas City Chiefs. We hate the Raiders and thus we hate their owner. In fact, the only thing we like about Davis is that as he gets older he continues to maker poorer and poorer personnel decisions for his team, which he lords over sort of like Satan rules hell.

Well yesterday, Al went unplugged a few of his cyborg power cords and went on battery power to give a press conference to introduce yet another poor son of a bitch as the head coach of the Oakland Raiders.

What resulted was something of a horror show in which Davis, now 124 years of age, was bleeding from the head and the left eye, rambled on about the Raiders’ glory days while comparing Jason Campbell to everyone from Jim Plunkettto to Count Chocula.

We managed to dig up some pictures of the whole ordeal but I have to warn you, it isn’t pretty. I’m serious Addicts. If you are eating or have a weak stomach or heart or have children around, you might not want to click continue reading.

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“What’s exciting to me as the head coach is we have a lot of guys that really care…These guys care and that is such a refreshing, positive thing out of this group… I’ve heard so many of our coaches, myself included, say this is a fun group to be around and coach, and it’s because they care.”

— Coach Todd Haley (December 5, 2010)

Yes, it’s true—this team cares. And ’tis the season when we all make a point to tell each other just how much we care. We double-check our holiday-card lists and we send the very best (or, in the case of Shaun Smith, reach out and touch someone). So I dug around in the Chiefs’ outgoing mailbag and here, with apologies to the good folks at Hallmark, are a few of the seasons greetings that I found…

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I’m about to say something many of you will find abhorrent: I sort of respect Raiders fans. 

That’s not to say I like them, or that I like the Raiders.  I grew up just like all of you; I know the score.  The Raiders are our enemies.  They always have been.  People might hate the Broncos more right now, but our real rival is Oakland.  It always has been, and for anyone born before 1990 it always will be. 

I grew up hating the Raiders with a passion.  There was a kid at my grade school who rooted for the Raiders and I hated him too.  I would go to that game at Arrowhead every year and scream my head off when KC Wolf would belly flop on the faux-armored goon at midfield.  My Chiefs pride was at its highest when we’d beat them.  And Marty owned those fools in the 90s.  Those were good times. 

More after the jump

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Al who? You shouldn

No matter the opponent, Chiefs fans get fired up for game day. But when it’s the Raiders, of course, the fires burn the entire week.

Of all the rivalries in the NFL, the 50-year-old, regularly renewed feud between the Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland/Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders is one of the bitterest and best. You don’t have to take my word for it. As unimpeachable a source as Wikipedia has this to say about it: “The Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders of the National Football League (NFL) are considered to have one of professional football’s most bitter rivalries.” See? It must be true.

Sure, there are plenty of reasons why this rivalry is so intense: The we’re-so-sick-of-you familiarity resulting from such a long, unbroken history of competition (CBS’s coverage of the game Sunday is all but certain to open up with some grainy ‘70s footage of Bobby Bell chasing down Daryle Lamonica or Jack Tatum spearing Otis Taylor); the heightened level of emotion and the potential for on- and off-field “incidents;” the fact that no matter how good or bad the teams have been (and this year, they’ve both been pretty good), the game is likely to be close—11 of the last 13 contests have been decided by seven points or fewer, and in the 102 times they’ve played, the Chiefs have only eight more wins, with two ties (thanks again, Wikipedia!).

But all of that on its own isn’t what makes hating* a rival fun. We despise(d) John Elway for his fourth-quarter comebacks, but he was fun to hate because he also had the toes of a pigeon and the teeth of a horse (more on that, perhaps, next week). Likewise, there are plenty of intriguing reasons to hate the Raiders. After the jump, I’ll share ten, in no particular order.

*Of course, I do not advocate “hate” as it exists in the real world, where it is almost always a product of ignorance. In sports, it’s the opposite: the more intimate the opponents, the more powerful the release of negative passion. Another reason why sports, in perspective, is a healthy emotional outlet. Just sayin’.

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Here goes:

Source: Yardbarker.com

#10:

Al Davis has actually been dead for 12 years but is being kept alive using a secret formula he developed in the 70′s.

It consists of the tears of a baby, the ground up bones of a kitten and a lock of John Madden’s hair. Al puts all this in a blender, adds ice and goats milk and drinks it every morning. For some reason, this concoction keeps his heart beating but it doesn’t keep him from decomposing before our very eyes. As long as John Madden keeps drinking whatever the hell it is he is taking to ward off death, Al will be ok.

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Will the devil dance on draft day? Photo Source: Yardbarker.com

In a recent article on SFGate.com, home of the San Francisco Chronicle, David White reported that Raiders have been offered the opportunity to trade out of the first round of the 2010 NFL Draft.

Citing an unnamed source, White claims that an unnamed team offered the Raiders their 2010 second round pick and their 2011 first round pick for the 8th pick in this years draft. Remember, the Raiders foolishly traded away their 2011 first round pick to the New England Patriots for Richard Seymour. Taking this deal would move the team out of the first round this year but would give them two 2nd round selections. The extra 2nd rounder should be attractive to the Raiders as it is being reported that they may offer their current 2nd round pick to the Eagles for QB Donnovan McNabb. Essentially, if the Raiders were to take the deal and trade for McNabb, they would have acquired Richard Seymour and Donnovan McNabb for a 2010 first round pick. Not too shabby, eh?

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I also suggested that the Bills might trade up with the Chiefs to aquire Sam Bradford. I was called daft for that as well. Not so crazy these days, is it?

OK, gloating aside, there were also plenty of things I was off base about. But hey, that is the fun of doing these things, no? I hope you enjoy reading these mocks as much as we enjoy coming up with them.

Each mock inevitably brings in new readers that are fans of other teams. To those folks I say welcome to Arrowhead Addict. We are happy to have you. Please, however, keep in mind that this is a Chiefs site, so if we get your teams pick wrong, chilax. Remember, this is all make-believe. I suggest, if you are going to comment, tell us what you think your team should do and add to the discussion, instead of wasting a perfectly thoughts in favor calling me a moron and declaring this the worst mock draft since Mel Kiper’s hair started looking ridiculous. Cheers!

Pick	Team	Player Selected	Player’s Position	Player’s School	Analysis
1.		Sam Bradford	Quarterback	Oklahoma	Different QB, same result. If the Rams were watching the playoffs last year and I know they were because they sure weren’t in them, they saw the caliber of QB it takes to succeed in the NFL. Manning, Brees, Favre, Rivers, Brady. There were some injury concerns about Bradford but those appear to be waning. He absolutely dazzled folks at the Combine with his size and character. Granted, he didn’t throw but unless his arm falls off at the shoulder at his pro day, this kid has a very big chance of going #1.
2.		Ndamukong Suh	Defensive Tackle	Nebraska	Lion’s defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham must be bursting with glee at the prospect of Bradford going #1. Last I heard, he anointed two armed guards to follow Bradford everywhere he goes and Cunningham himself, is giving Bradford daily shoulder massages and is waiting on the QB hand and foot to help him relax for his pro day. That scream of glee you hear when the Rams draft Bradford, that will be Cunningham.
3.		Gerald McCoy	Defensive Tackle	Oklahoma	This choice will be pretty automatic for Tampa. They would probably rather trade back (who wouldn’t) but it isn’t going to happen. Their only hope is that some QB desperate team freaks and goes all in to get Clausen out of fear that the Redskins will take him. I just don’t think it will happen. #3 is really high to trade up. The earliest trade I think we will see is at #5 with KC but you never know.
4.		Jimmy Clausen	Quarterback	Notre Dame	I am baffled when I see mock drafts that have the redskins picking a LT like Okung here to protect Jason Campbell. That is like trying to convince Jamarcus Russel to show up to camp thinner than Tom Cable. It ain’t gonna happen.  Old rat face made his bacon in Denver by somehow creating a running game out of thin air with any HB who happen to be standing on his sideline. He took an entire offensive line cast off by the Browns and made them decent. No, I have changed my mind on this. Shanahan is not going to roll with Jason Campell. I wouldn’t put it past Shanni to pull a fast one and snatch up Chad Pennington for a year to have him run a bootleg extravaganza but I think if Clausen is there he is going to take him and get to work on terrorizing the NFC.

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Could you work for this man? Seriously! I've seen this picture a million times and it still gives me the willies!

You may remember a few weeks ago, we told you that former Chiefs defensive coordinator, Clancy Pendergast, was hired to be the new defensive backs coach of the Oakland Raiders.

Well, it appears as though Clancy has had a change of heart and in an effort not to have his soul consumed by Al Davis, pictured right. Pendergast ran from Oakland Coliseum as fast as he could to take a job as the defensive coordinator at Cal.

From National Football Post:

Hired recently by the Oakland Raiders as their secondary coach, former Kansas City Chiefs defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast has a new job.

Pendergast has accepted a position as the new defensive coordinator at Cal-Berkeley, per a league source.

Pendergast was replaced in Kansas City by Romeo Crennel.

Now, he has joined Jeff Tedford’s staff after an extremely brief tenure in Oakland.

He replaces Bob Gregory, who left to join the Boise State staff as a defensive assistant.

Can you blame him?

Al Davis: The only owner ever to grow up to look just like his team's logo.

DOUBLE UPDATE: Things just keep getting better. The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that Al Davis has been interviewing candidates for Cable’s job for TWO weeks. What is he doing? Interviewing coaches before he fires the one he has. Interviewing offensive coordinators before he has fired his head coach or hired a new one? NFL are you listening? What will it take for you to step in? An Al Davis shooting spree?

UPDATE: Adam Schefter just reported via Twitter that Jackson is not going to Oakland to interview for the head coaching position. Instead, he will be interviewing to be the team’s offensive coordinator. I thought for a moment of taking this article down, however, then I remembered that Schefter’s report that Cable had no knowledge that the interview was taking place. Really, that is worse isn’t it? It is one thing to be interviewing people for a man’s job before you’ve fired him but it is another to DO a mans job for him without firing him. I say again, stay classy Al Davis.

You’ll love this one, Addicts. With another stroke of professionalism, Al Davis is interviewing candidates for Tom Cable’s job BEFORE firing Cable.

ESPN.com is reporting that the Raiders have asked for permission to speak to Ravens quarterbacks coach Hue Jackson for an “unspecified position.”

To further the ridiculousness, Adam Schefter just said on his Twitter that Cable had no idea Jackson was coming in for an interview.

One would assume that if Jackson was coming in to interview for a staff position, Cable, being the head coach, would know about it. Unless, of course, Jackson is coming in to interview for Cable’s job.

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Of course, it doesn’t work when the owner won’t take a somewhat hands-off approach and let the football people he brings in make the football decisions. Al’s problems are: A.) He thinks he’s smarter than everybody else, even when it comes to Xs and Os; B.) He wants everyone to be subservient to him. Yeah, like dogs basically; and C.) He knows his time is winding down, so he’s gotten ridiculously impatient. Lane Kiffin was doing fine. He already had the Silver and Black playing much better. Hell, they’re a few plays away from being 3-1. I would have traded him for Herm Edwards and even thrown in some Metamucil for the Crypt Keeper. Either that or a Ouija board so that his employees could actually speak with him. Yes, I know I’m going to take heat for bashing Herm after last week, but save it. He’s still a terrible game coach.

Will the Raiders ever win again while Al Davis remains in power?

The choice was so bad I thought Al Davis made it.

Whatever your politics are, you’ve gotta love it when a comedian bashes the Crypt Keeper on one of America’s most watched programs. Let’s just all be thankful Al Davis is running the Raiders into the ground, and not running for President.

Brodie Croyle’s only hope to be a star in Kansas City is if the Chiefs and Royals suck so bad simultaneously that they create a black hole at the sports complex that is only reversed by David Glass and Clark Hunt simultaneously joining their open wallets together like Voltron creating the Kansas City Chroyles a merger of the Chiefs and Royals; a shittiest of the shitty combination of KC suck with Brodie Croyle as the pitcher and quarterback that always gets hurt the first game of the season.

Just think, the Chroyles could out-build Famous Dave’s Arrowhead Stadium* so big that it could encompass the K. For SuperBowl and ad considerations, we’ll shape the roof like a weber grill, even with a vent that open up in a circle to shine light down to the pitcher’s mound/50 yard line to illuminate our star pitcher/quarterback Brokie Croyle and Garth Brooks the next time he comes to town. Hell, we can have a golf cart with a spatula on the front, The Spatula-Mobile, come scrape Brokie off the field at each opener!

Local Radio Commercial in KC soon:

“Hai y’all, I’m Brodie Croyle, when I ain’t pitchin’ or playin’ quarterback for the Chroyles I do my shoppin’ for ammo, decoys and Ben Gay at Bass Pro Shop!”

Quick Hitters:

• 3 starting QB’s in the first 3 games has only happened 3 times…ever. (Guess good things don’t happen in 3′s.)

• A Chiefs-drafted QB hasn’t won a regular season game for us since ’83. (Dang 3′s)

• “Chiefs Apathy” from fans will do more damage than “Harm“* Edwards ever will.

• Watching the Chiefs play-honestly, I haven’t missed the halfback pass this bad since Tecmo Bowl.

*Harm = Herm, henceforth.
**I know Famous Dave’s isn’t HQ’d in KC- Carl will sell out to an out-of-stater in a panic after seeing the ticket sales report.

QB Carousel:

Week One
So we begin the season vs New England with Brokie Croyle, Brokie gets broke-ed in the first game. He beat my prediction of getting injured in the Denver Game by 2 games. Huard comes in and stinks too. Throw in a case of the dropsies by D-Bo and that’s L soup. “No Win for you!”

Week Two
Superbowl Ring Owner Damon “RainMan” Huard starts game two against what looked to be a totally hapless Oakland team that Denver embarrassed the week before. “RainMan” gets a phantom “head injury” that isn’t released until much later in the game. Harm Edwards decides to play Marques Hagans fresh off the practice squad along with boner-rific Tyler Thigpen who “set all kinda records” at Coastal Carolina University (which had just started football five years prior.) All you need to know is about 39 comments on “Worst Moment”

Week 3
Atlanta, a preseason pick for the worst team in the league, has started 1-1. Thigpen starts and accidentally hands off to the rushing Atlanta defender for 6. Hagans comes in and gets booed because the Atlanta crowd mistakes him for Michael Vick because he never throws and his tats. We do something that rhymes with “news”. Hint? It starts with “L”.

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I still think it just comes down to spending cap room wisely. When teams get in trouble is often when they spend on guys who are aging, coming off injuries, have emotional baggage, etc. It’s like the bargain DVD bin at Wall-Mart; once in a while you’ll find a steal, but its mostly just a pile of crap. From ESPN:

Oakland Raiders receiver Javon Walker, struggling with his performance during training camp, told the team Thursday he intended to retire and offered to return his $11 million signing bonus.

According to a source, Raiders owner Al Davis persuaded Walker to remain with the team.

From Just Blog Baby:

I’ve said week after week that there’s just something wrong with this guy.  Although I still don’t know what is going on in his head or his life, nor do I really care to know, it does seem that whatever is going on is weighing too much on the 29-year old receiver for him to be able to handle the rigors of the NFL.  Let alone hone in on his incredible talents long enough to actually live up to the tens of millions of dollars that the Raiders have given him, and promised him over the next 6 seasons.