Or does it?  Lane Kiffin was fired today by Al Davis and in typical Al Davis fashion, he is not going to honor the rest of Kiffin’s contract.  We all knew that Davis didn’t want to pay out the rest of Kiffin’s contract, that is why he was pressuring him to quit.  So while the Kiffin era ends in Oakland, perhaps the fall out from it is just starting.  I would imagine that Kiffin will want to be paid the money that is owed to him under his contract, and no doubt a grievance will be fired.  And not only is Davis trying to withhold pay, but Davis is such a stand up guy that he fired Kiffin by telephone.  You have to love an owner who refuses to meet with the coach he has put on the hot seat and then when he finally does decide to fire him, does it by phone.  When was the last time these two even saw each other?  The pre-season?

Now the search for the next Raiders head coach beings.  I for one would suggest hosting a reality TV show to determine who it will be.  Hell, this organization is already a joke, why not capitalize more on that joke and make more money by having your own TV show?  Plus if we could get Al Davis to host it then we can look at his ugly mug and make fun of him constantly.  It sounds like a win win situation, except for the fact that I don’t think anyone in their right mind would want to take that job.

For now the duty will fall to someone else within the organization.  Supposedly it is going to be offensive line coach Tom Cable. Though Al Davis has a man crush on Rob Ryan so I’m surprised he isn’t going that route.  But undoubtedly the team will have no more success than they did under Kiffin.  At least for him the team played hard for a coach they all liked.  Now they all know the season is a lost cause and they aren’t playing for their coaches job anymore so I think it is safe to assume the rest of the year in Oakland isn’t going to be pretty.

There was a point in time during yesterday’s Raiders Chargers game where it looked like the Oakland Raiders were a 12-4 team, not a 4-12 team.  Then, as reliable as the sun rising, the Raiders flipped the switch and went into “Raider mode.”  Instead of throwing up a hail mary pass to end the half, Head Coach Lane Kiffin called for the field goal team to go onto the field and for Sebastian Janikowski to attempt a 76 yard field goal.  76 yards! The NFL record is 63 and that was kicked in the thin air of Denver with wind assistance.  This was 76 yards into the wind in the dead air of Oakland.

It was at this point that I realized that Lane Kiffin simply doesn’t give a shit about his job anymore.  JaMarcus Russell has arguably the strongest arm in football, throwing an off balance pass 70 yards earlier in the game.  There was no question that Russell could get it to the endzone, it was a matter of Kiffin letting him try it.  Screw it.  Why not try and kick the longest field goal in NFL history with the fattest kicker in NFL history.  Of course Janikowski shorted it, barely getting it inside the five yard line.  Not that it would have mattered even if it had the distance; Janikowski pulled the shit out of it to the left.

Update: Thanks to Deadspin who located a video of the play.  Enjoy it before it promptly gets removed by the NFL Youtube Nazis