If you expected to see Oakland Raiders coach Tom Cable fired as soon as the 2009 NFL season ended, you might want to adjust your calendar. If this is going to happen, it's going to happen on Raider time.
Cable escaped his "Black Monday" meeting with Al Davis with his playbook and his Raiders Starter jacket intact, but received no assurance he'll be asked back for 2010, the Oakland Tribune reports. That decision may come this Monday, when Cable meets with Davis to discuss his future.
Us know-it-alls in the sports media are convinced that Cable's firing is already a done deal. The San Jose Mercury News reports that sources close to Davis say he's already made up his mind. "Several people close to Davis say he is inclined to fire Cable and hire a new coach for the sixth time since Jon Gruden was jettisoned after the 2001 season," the Merc's Steve Corkran writes.
Coach Cable is unruffled by rumors of his firing, probably because he's been hearing them now non-stop for the last two months. "All I know is I have a contract right now,” Cable told the Oakland Tribune. “Whether or not it’s honored is not up to me. I’m a ball coach. I’m a damn good football coach so things will work out. They always do."
The new trendy rumored candidate to replace Cable, if he's fired, is deposed Texas Tech coach Mike Leach. "Some NFL team, embracing the growing emphasis on quarterbacks and passing, will come after Leach," Monte Poole writes in the Mercury News. "No team has a greater need than Oakland."
Leach was fired from Texas Tech over allegations that he'd locked a player with a concussion in an electrical closet.
If that's the way Mike Leach treats his subordinates, then I can't wait to see what he would do to Randy Hanson.
Sports
Joe Kukura is a freelance writer who would like for Mike Leach to coach the Oakland Raiders, because he's so quotable.
