by Richard Helling

Created on: December 24, 2008

The plain and simple truth is that the biggest single problem with the Oakland Raiders is Al Davis. Everyone knows the old saying about how certain substances roll downhill and Al Davis has been rolling, shoveling, dumping and even throwing it down that hill for years. Unfortunately, it is everyone who works for or supports the Raiders that are in the way of Al and his dump truck full of that certain substance.

One need look no farther than the way he handles the coaching staff. He hires coaches and then completely undermines their authority to the point that no one knows who is in charge. Each coach is constantly looking over his shoulder wondering when he is going to be fired just like every other coach the Raiders have had in the last ten years. And, by the way, some of these coaches that he fired and said would never make it in the league have done pretty well for themselves. John Gruden seems like his NFL career is going pretty well. I believe Mike Shannahan has two Super Bowl rings and a fairly impressive winning percentage as well. It will be interesting to see what Lane Kiffin does at The University of Tennessee. My guess is that Kiffin will do just fine and once again Al Davis will pluck the next unfortunate young coach and attempt to thrash his career too.

As if the coaching staff wasn't bad enough, how about the players? Who else other than Al Davis could completely fumble the Jamarcus Russel signing last year? What other owner in the NFL would take the number one overall pick and then refuse to pay him the kind of salary that a number one overall draft pick commands. I could have understood if Davis didn't want Russel and he decided to trade the pick to another team for a couple of draft picks or an all-star, but instead Al essentially wasted an entire year of development for the young quarterback he thought was going to lead his franchise back to the glory days of "Just Win Baby!"

Still not convinced? How about Warren Sapp? One of the best defensive players in the league got traded to Oakland and completely disappeared. I know the argument can be made that Sapp was on the back side of his career anyway, but great players like Warren Sapp don't just completely drop off a cliff. The same can be said for Jerry Rice. The Oakland Raiders look like the witness protection program for the NFL. As soon as a player puts on a silver and black jersey they will never be found on Sportscenter again.

Randy Moss is another great example of the wasteland that is the

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