Former Oakland Raider Warren Sapp seemed like he might be having a good behavior day when he appeared Wednesday on The Dan Patrick show. When given a chance to pile on and rag on his former Raider coach Lane Kiffin, Sapp demurred and played the nice guy.
"For me to say something about the man right now, would be a little, you know, disingenuous," Sapp told Patrick.
But when given a chance to rip on the Raiders' current coach, Sapp unleashed his inner Raider-hater on the embattled Tom Cable. In a segment still available online, Sapp questions Cable's ability to serve as even an assistant coach in the NFL, let alone a head coach.
"Tom Cable don't even know that the defensive lineman knows his protection when he goes into a ballgame," Sapp said. "I was standing in front of the man, he tells me to rush his offensive line. I said, 'Okay, what set are you coming out in?' He looks at me and says, 'What? No, I just want you to rush.'"
"I said, 'Let me understand this. You're gonna break the huddle, you come out into a formation. It'll be two receivers, three receivers, whatever you want to do. But there's some way you have to protect. And I would know that, 90% of the time. He looked at me like I was speaking Chinese."
Well, Warren Sapp, I just typed those words verbatim and I'm having trouble making narrative sense of them, too. But what I think Sapp's getting at is something like a Bill Callahan, Super-Bowl-against-the-Buccaneers situation where the opposing defense can easily figure out the offense's playcalls.
Patrick asked if Cable has earned another year as Raiders coach, and Sapp questioned Cable's qualification to even be a head coach in the first place.
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"He's not qualified to be an offensive line coach in my book," Sapp said. "Because he doesn't know I know which way his center's going 90% of the time. He blew my mind with that one. I said, 'Son, you think I got all these sacks 'cause I'm guessing which way the center's going?'"
Since all five hundred pounds of Sapp are firmly on the Fire Tom Cable bandwagon, who would Sapp recommend as a new Raiders coach?
Sapp answered with a question, "Didn't Fassel always want this job?"
"He wants any job, Warren!" Patrick wisecracked back.
Sapp's other recommendation? "I like Mike Leach. Anybody who puts some points on the board, I like that guy."
Gosh, almost makes you wish that Warren Sapp would have had a coach like Mike Leach in his formative years.
Joe Kukura is a freelance writer who has to admit that Warren Sapp can be pretty funny when he rags on a team other than the Raiders.
