The Bay Area's loss is Las Vegas' gain with sexy former 49er Jimmy Garoppolo headed to become the Raiders' newest quarterback. And two workers at the Chicken Ranch brothel in Pahrump, Nevada have a special lifetime offer for Jimmy G.

"I almost fainted when I heard Jimmy signed with the Raiders," says sex worker Caitlin Bell in a statement, per TMZ. "He deserves free sex just for joining our team. But he gets free sex for life from us just because he’s such a legit babe!"

Yes, the unmarried Garoppolo, who has been known to date adult film actresses, can now head to Pahrump during the offseason, or whenever he has some time off in Vegas, and get free services from Bell and her coworker Alice Little.

Says Little to TMZ, "Jimmy brought the Niners to the Super Bowl and he could do the same for the Raiders. The next Big Game is in Vegas, so I’m going to go all the way to inspire Jimmy to go all the way!"

It's unclear which offer came first, but TMZ notes that another, competing brothel in Pahrump also extended a free-sex offer to Garoppolo after he signed with the Raiders. Sheri's Ranch allegedly sent a letter to Jimmy G saying that he and some teammates should come by for a "celebratory weekend blowout... to take advantage of the resort’s themed hotel suites, bar and restaurant, swimming pool, and Jacuzzi — all expenses paid, of course."

So yes, in addition to his sweet three-year, $67.5 million contract with the Raiders, Jimmy is set to be swimming in you know what, gratis, for the next three years in Sin City. Should he be into that sort of thing.

The Chicken Ranch was the subject of a 1982 documentary, called Chicken Ranch, directed by Sandi Sissel and Nick Broomfield. It is not to be confused with the nearby Moonlite BunnyRanch, which was featured on the HBO series Cathouse.

Related: Jimmy Garoppolo Headed to the Raiders; Artist ‘Drawing Jimmy G Every Day’ Will Stop Drawing Jimmy G

Top image: Garoppolo photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images; other photos via Instagram and Chicken Ranch website

The controversial quarterback is now 34 years old, and has not played NFL football in five seasons, but he had an audition workout Wednesday with the Las Vegas Raiders.

San Francisco 49ers fans remember well the season that quarterback Colin Kaperenick went from lovable bicep-kissing hero to national lightning rod for criticism over his kneeling during the National Anthem protests. (As we learned in 2019, he was inspired to do so because of the Mario Woods SFPD shooting.) That was 2016, and Kaepernick technically opted out of his contract at the end of the season, though the 49ers told him they would cut him if he didn’t. No team signed him since, and it didn’t help that Trump was president, though Kaepernick did win a settlement of an unknown dollar amount in his grievance against the NFL for collusion to blackball him.    

Kaepernick may find himself blackballed no more. ESPN reports that Kaepernick got a workout with the Las Vegas Raiders, formerly the Oakland Raiders, despite his being 34 years old and not having played NFL football in five seasons.

“Colin Kaepernick, who last played professional football in 2016 — the year he started kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice — is scheduled to work out Wednesday for the Las Vegas Raiders,” ESPN reported. “It will mark Kaepernick's first workout with an NFL team since being exiled, and it will be the first time the former star quarterback visits with a team since he flew to Seattle to meet with the Seahawks in May 2017 before they passed on the opportunity to sign him.”

NFL Network’s Ian Rappaport confirmed it was today Wednesday, not next Wednesday.

Current Raiders owner Mark Davis has already supported the idea of bringing Kap back. “I believe in Colin Kaepernick,” Davis told NBC Bay Area a month ago. “He deserves every chance in the world to become a quarterback in the National Football League. I still stand by it. If our coaches and General Manager want to bring him in or want him to be the quarterback on this team, I would welcome him with open arms.”

It would be great to see the guy get another chance, so let’s consider this from a football perspective. Raiders starting quarterback Derek Carr just signed a $126 million contract, so Kaepernick would surely be a backup. The Raiders’ other current backups are Jarrett Stidham (acquired via trade with New England), Chase Garbers (fresh out of Cal!), and… Nick Mullens.

If your options are Nick Mullens or Colin Kaepernick, folks, it’s probably bicep-kissing time.

Related: Colin Kaepernick is Back in the NFL — Virtually — in ‘Madden NFL’ Video Game [SFist]

LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 24: Colin Kaepernick #7 of the San Francisco 49ers walks to the field before the game against the Los Angeles Rams at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on December 24, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)

It’s becoming clear that the Oakland A’s would flat-out prefer Las Vegas, as they’ve made a bid on a property along the Strip as the Howard Terminal stadium plan continues to languish.

With fans now back in pro sports stadiums, it’s becoming clear that the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas was a huge success. Oh sure there have been off-field issues, like firing their coach over racist emails, and you know, the player who may have killed someone because he was allegedly driving drunk at 156 miles an hour.

But human life and racist behavior do not concern pro sports owners, they only care about money. And even though Las Vegas is a relatively tiny market (42nd largest in the nation), the Raiders are selling out games. Half the audience may be tourists rooting for the visiting team, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the system works, people are buying tickets, and the Las Vegas market is over-performing relative to its population size.

That’s why we’re seeing two significant reports this week, as the Chronicle reports today that Las Vegas is becoming more attractive to the A’s. More significantly, CNBC reported yesterday that the A’s have made an offer on some land on the Las Vegas strip.

The A’s have not bought that land yet, they’ve only made an undisclosed offer. “The site is likely Bally’s Tropicana,” CNBC reported Wednesday. “There’s a lot of land available, certainly enough for a professional baseball stadium to go on to the Tropicana site.”

And while it’s long seemed that the whole Las Vegas thing was a leverage move to get their new Jack London Square ballpark approved in the most favorable terms, the Chron notes that the possibility has become quite real. “What was once viewed as an attempt to pressure Oakland decision-makers into green-lighting the team’s preferred location for a waterfront ballpark might be more than a negotiation tactic,” the Chronicle reports. “There is a growing belief in Las Vegas that the A’s will join the Raiders, the NHL’s Golden Knights and the WNBA’s Aces as the city’s next major sports franchise.”

The Chronicle also notes that suburban Las Vegas already has a very classy new minor-league stadium that the A's have toured — where A's AAA affiliates the Las Vegas Aviators play — and that the market is, indeed, very excited about baseball in general.

But there are two very major, bigger-picture issues that neither of these reports acknowledges.

Hey, did you know that as of midnight last night, there is an MLB lockout underway? The current collective bargaining agreement expired, and players and owners did not agree on a new one, and the owners will not even allow players to enter facilities. Could this work stoppage bleed into next season, and cancel games? It sure could! The 1994-95 baseball strike lasted nearly eight months, and this could theoretically last even longer. So frankly, everything in baseball right now is total back-burner issue compared to the lockout.

And there other issue is gambling, which you may have noticed, has become shockingly normalized in sports broadcasts. We now see ads for online betting during national TV broadcasts, and the old tiptoe, dance-around language of “significant to some” has given way to explicit on-air discussion of point spreads, “locks,” and “bad bets.” Gambling is of course the fabric of Las Vegas, and many franchise owners are now fully in bed with the gambling industry, which had been completely taboo just a few years ago.

If Las Vegas offers the Athletics significant opportunities for gambling side revenue, it’s a fair bet the team would go all-in on that.

Related: Plans For Redeveloped Oakland Coliseum Include NFL and WNBA Teams, New Convention Center [SFist]

Image: @julianpaefgen via Unsplash

There are still Raiders fans in the Bay Area even if they are just the long-distance supporters of a Las Vegas team now. And so it remains local news that the Raiders head coach has been shown to be a gross human being, and that revelation led to his extremely quick resignation on Monday.

Former Raiders coach Jon Gruden, who first coached the team from 1998 to 2001 and returned as head coach while they were still in Oakland in 2018 after years as a TV sports analyst, resigned abruptly Monday evening and issued an apology for a series of decade-old emails that surfaced containing a multitude of offensive statements. The emails found him denigrating a Black union head, women referees, league president Roger Goodell, and openly gay football players — the first one of whom to actually play in the NFL, Carl Nassib, plays for the Raiders.

The revelations began with a 2011 email surfaced by the Wall Street Journal on Monday and confirmed by the New York Times. In it, Gruden referred to DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the N.F.L. Players Association union, in racist terms, telling then coach of the Washington Football Team, Bruce Allen, "Dumboriss Smith has lips the size of michellin [sic] tires."

Goodell directed league executives to do an audit of 650,000 internal emails this summer, stemming from a harassment and workplace misconduct case involving the Washington team, and the Gruden email was one that surfaced. It appears it was shared with the Journal just hours before a vote was to take place confirming a fifth term as union executive director for Smith — who had been facing unusually strong opposition in the wake of some team representatives believing he had been too deferential to the league during the pandemic.

But the offensive remarks from Gruden don't end there, and the New York Times reports on dozens of other emails found from when Gruden was working as an ESPN analyst in the last decade, after his Super Bowl-winning stint as head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

In other emails, Gruden reportedly referred to Goodell multiple times as a "faggot" and a "clueless anti football pussy." Gruden was incensed by the league making efforts to reduce concussions among players, and he reportedly slammed Goodell for pressuring then-coach of the Rams, Jeff Fisher, to draft openly gay player Michael Sam in 2014. (Sam was ultimately cut in the preseason, and went on to play briefly in the Canadian Football League before retiring.)

Gruden was also apparently pissed off when Black players began kneeling in protest during the national anthem. And he was no fan of Barack Obama during the 2012 election, and he reportedly called then-VP Joe Biden a "nervous clueless pussy."

As all of this was being reported on Monday, NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy issued a statement saying, "The email from Jon Gruden denigrating DeMaurice Smith is appalling, abhorrent and wholly contrary to the N.F.L.’s values."

And by Monday evening, the Raiders tweeted a statement from Gruden, saying, "I have resigned as Head Coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. I love the Raiders and do not want to be a distraction. Thank you to all the players, coaches, staff, and fans of Raider Nation. I’m sorry, I never meant to hurt anyone."

Some on social media are referring to this situation as being the result of the "cancel culture mob," but many others, including Black NFL players, are celebrating the removal of Gruden.

ESPN radio host and former NFL wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson pulled no punches in calling Gruden a "used car salesman," and saying of Gruden Tuesday, "He's just always been a fraud to me."

USA Today's sports blog For the Win suggests that it's unfortunate that Nassib will now have to answer questions about Gruden's ignorance. And, they write, this may all just be for show anyway, with the ingrained culture of the NFL being what it is.

"The NFL is good at this: Strenuously reacting in public to a problem that it probably could not deal with even if it wanted to," For the Win says.

But, perhaps this is a sign of some kind of evolution, that these emails were even leaked at all — and Yahoo Sports argues that the case of Gruden is exactly why Nassib's courage in coming out is so important, even though many fans rushed to say it wasn't, and it was just a "distraction."

Assistant Coach Rich Bisaccia has been elevated to Acting Head Coach of the Raiders.

Top image: Former head coach John Gruden of the Las Vegas Raiders reacts on the sideline during a game against the Chicago Bears at Allegiant Stadium on October 10, 2021 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

After 11 seasons in the NFL, playing in Buffalo, Seattle, and Oakland, running back Marshawn Lynch (aka Beast Mode) plans to retire, according to league sources. The news broke on Wednesday, as ESPN's Adam Schefter reported league sources told him Lynch is "not planning on playing football again."

This, as many avid NFL fans will remember, is Beast Mode's second time retiring from the game. Back in 2016, following an injury-marred '15 campaign with the Seahawks, Lynch announced his retirement via Twitter. He had signed a two-year/$24 million contract extension ahead of the 2015 season with Seattle.

Marshawn will go down as one of the best talents ever to come out of the Bay Area. He attended Oakland Tech High School in the East Bay, where he was lauded for his abilities, earning him a #2 overall national ranking at the running back position behind Adrian Peterson. From there, he took his talents to college, remaining close to home, enrolling in UC Berkeley.

Through three seasons at Cal, Lynch racked up 3,230 rushing yards, 600 yards receiving, and 35 total touchdowns (29 rushing). Those stats would land Marshawn near the top of most draft boards heading into the 2007 NFL Draft. Ultimately, with the 12th overall selection, the Buffalo Bills would take Marshawn.

Beast Mode would have some success, up in Buffalo, in his stint that lasted just over three seasons. He would go on to record over 1,000 rushing yards in each of his first two seasons with the Bills and was selected to the 2008 Pro-Bowl. Buffalo, however, would trade Lynch to the Seahawks during the 2010 season.

In Seattle, the true Beast Mode was born. He went on to produce hearty rushing numbers over his first four full seasons with the Seahawks:

2011: 1,204 YDS, 12 TD

2012: 1,509 YDS, 11 TD

2013: 1,257 YDS, 12 TD

2014: 1,306 YDS, 13 TD

From 2011-2014, each year, Marshawn was selected to the Pro-Bowl. He also did such a phenomenal job during the 2012 season that he was given First-Team All-Pro honors. Lynch won a Super Bowl with Seattle in 2013, but was caught up in the team's 2014 Super Bowl loss to the Patriots, following his coach's failure to give him the ball on four consecutive goal-line attempts, with the game on the line and the team trailing.

In 2017, his long journey finally led him back home to Oakland and a Raiders team that had just come off of an excellent 12-4 season and playoff berth. After taking a year off, the Oakland native was granted a trade from his former team (Seahawks) to the Raiders for Oakland's 2018 fifth-round draft pick. Seattle also sent over their sixth-round pick in the deal.

Things looked bright both for Marshawn and the Oakland Raiders, ahead of the 2017 season, but that brightness would give way to the murky cloudiness of mediocrity, as Oakland would fail to return to the level of play they showcased in 2016. On Lynch's part, he played just about as well as anyone could have expected. During the 2017 season, Lynch rushed for a respectable 891 yards and scored seven touchdowns. In 2018, taking on a heavily-reduced role in coach Jon Gruden's first season back with the team, Marshawn was relegated to 376 yards on the ground and 3 touchdowns.

With several running backs already on the Oakland roster and having had his role significantly diminished, it's no wonder Marshawn decided it was probably time to officially walk away and ride off into the sunset. For Bay Area fans, the pleasure was all theirs, watching Beast Mode return home and run over the competition for two seasons in silver and black.

Maxwell's Army father: 'I’m right there with my baby' when it comes to anthem protest https://t.co/0LaDXhwvvP pic.twitter.com/7WqKCNCM5v

On Saturday, Bruce Maxwell, catcher for the Oakland A's, became the first Major League Baseball player to kneel during the national anthem. Following that, on Sunday, he knelt during the national anthem for a second time, joining the Oakland Raiders, all of whom either knelt or linked arms during the national anthem before their game against the Washington Redskins.

Maxwell, who's been on the end of loads of criticism for his decision, is fully aware of the fact that protesting in such a way can result in the end of his sports career. In speaking with KRON 4, he said, "If it ends up driving me out of baseball, then so be it. This is bigger than a monetary standpoint, this is bigger than the uniform I put on every day. This is about the people in this country and we all deserve to be treated equally. That’s the whole purpose of us taking a knee during the national anthem.

For what it's worth, Maxwell has the support of his team behind him. Before Sunday's game, Bob Melvin, manager for the A's, also told KRON 4, "It does take a lot of courage because you know that now the potential of the crosshairs are on you and for a guy who’s not as established, I’m sure, and I’m not speaking for him, but I’m sure there were some feelings for him that there was some risk. I do know that he felt better about it afterwards because there’s a lot of uncertainty when you take that type of step."

And though it's unclear whether the Raiders' coaching staff and management support their protesting players, it's quite obvious that the fans do. As ABC 7 tells it, attendees at Sunday's game cheered in support as the players moved to kneel or link arms during the anthem.

But in talking about protesting the national anthem and the potential backlash that lies in doing so, it's impossible to not bring up former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whose career has been in limbo since he first sat during a 49ers preseason game last year.

When he was asked what that demonstration meant back in 2016, Kaepernick told NFL.com, "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."

With Maxwell and the Raiders joining many other athletes across multiple professional sports leagues, it's clear that Kaepernick's message has not only spread, but expanded as well.

After Saturday's game, Maxwell issued a statement to SFGate about his decision to kneel. "The point of my kneeling was not to disrespect our military or our constitution or our country. My hand was over my heart because I love this country and I have family members, including my father, who bled for this country, and who continues to serve. At the end of the day, this is the best country on the planet. I am and forever will be an American citizen and grateful to be here, but my kneeling is what’s getting the attention, and I’m kneeling for the people who don’t have a voice. This goes beyond the black and Hispanic communities because right now we have a racial divide that’s being practiced from the highest power we have in this country saying it’s basically OK to treat people differently. I’m kneeling for a cause but I’m in no way disrespecting my country or my flag."

Such demonstrations have even earned the ire of Trump, who has spent more time tweeting about his anger over these demonstrations than he has about anything going on in Puerto Rico right now. What began as Kaepernick's quiet protest against the police's continued acts of violence against people of color — specifically Black people — has grown into a wider sign of protest, one that's struck many sports fans in ways both good and bad. But whether that sign can grow into something more is entirely up to all of us.

Related: Raiders' Marshawn Lynch Sits For National Anthem, Reigniting Kaepernick Controversy

We were determined to loathe and ignore the Oakland Raiders this season, as the team has one foot out the door now that their obnoxious move to Las Vegas is a done deal. (The team will move in 2019 or 2020.) But it became a little tougher to hate upon these Raiders once they traded for Skittle-loving local shopkeeper Marshawn Lynch in April, as Lynch represents the nice homecoming story of an Oakland Tech and UC Berkeley grad now playing for his hometown team. And it became impossible to ignore the Raiders after Saturday night’s preseason opener, when Lynch refused to stand for the national anthem according to the AP, taking the lead from Colin Kaepernick’s Star-Spangled Banner kneeling protest that created nonstop controversy last season.

Lynch did not play Saturday night, but it’s unlikely he was benched as punishment for refusing to rise. Most of the Raiders best-known stars were held out of the first preseason game, likely to minimize injury risk in an exhibition contest. Starting quarterback David Carr, All-Pro defensive end Khalil Mack, and first-team linebacker Bruce Irvin were also healthy scratches for the game.

But Lynch made the biggest headline of any of the Raiders on Saturday, as he has a tendency to do. Oakland coach Jack Del Rio, who is known to be something of a Sean Hannity fan, downplayed the protest. “That’s a non-issue for me,” Del Rio told the AP. “[Lynch] said, ‘This is something I’ve done for 11 years. It’s not a form of anything other than me being myself’.”

Lynch himself did not speak to reporters, and is typically quite media-shy. But there is some dispute on the “11 years” claim, as ProFootballTalk has unearthed 2011 footage of Lynch standing for the anthem. Protesting the anthem was popularized by the now-exiled 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who remains unsigned amidst speculation he’s being blackballed for his national anthem protest.

For what it’s worth, the Raiders lost the meaningless exhibition game 20-10. In other not-standing-for-the-national-anthem news this weekend, Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett also chose not to rise for the Star Spangled Banner, indicating this culture-war controversy will remain front and center during what is obviously already a rather tense moment in U.S. race relations.

Related: Entire Mission High School Football Team Follows Kaepernick's Lead, Kneels During Anthem

The Raiders may not be long for the Bay Area, but there's cause for celebration today with the return of prodigal Oakland son Marshawn Lynch. Born and raised in Oakland, Lynch rose to fame as a running back with the Seattle Seahawks, retiring in 2015 before surprise un-retiring to join the Raiders.

To celebrate signing with his hometown team today, TMZ claims, Lynch would host a block party at his namesake Oakland retail store Beast Mode Apparel. Guests would include teammate Derek Carr, actor Michael B. Jordan (Creed, Fruitvale Station), and rapper E-40 (going dumb, getting hyphy), TMZ said.

Others including national sports reporters and KRON 4 appeared to corroborate the news, but a representative at Beast Mode Apparel tells SFist that there's no such block party. This may be somewhat devastating if you were already getting into partying Beast Mode.

Beast Mode Apparel is open for business, however, and now's still a good time to invest in some Lynch gear. The Chronicle has it that his two-year deal with the Raiders was agreed upon yesterday: He'll make $3 million in 2017 as his base salary and stands to make $3 million more if he rushes for 1,000 yards or more.

In related news, actor Tom Hanks, an Oakland native and Raiders fan himself, says he's going to boycott the NFL altogether if the Raiders move to Las Vegas. As ABC 7 reports, the actor made comments to the effect that "you can't put them in an air-conditioned dome in the desert, make them play on artificial turf and call them the Raiders."

Related: NFL Approves Raiders' Proposed Move To Las Vegas

NFL owners today voted 31 to 1 to allow the Oakland Raiders to move to Las Vegas, setting the stage to deprive Bay Area fans of a beloved football franchise that first began in Oakland in 1960. As NFL.com reports, the vote took place at the Annual League Meeting in Phoenix, and the planned move to Nevada will be the team's third in its history, following a move to Los Angeles in 1982 and a move back to Oakland in 1995.

As the SF Business Times reports, the only dissenting vote came from the Miami Dolphins.

Raiders owner Mark Davis, whose father Al took the team to LA in the 1980s, issued a statement saying, "The Raiders were born in Oakland and Oakland will always be part of our DNA. We know that some fans will be disappointed and even angry, but we hope that they do not direct that frustration to the players, coaches and staff." Davis added, "We plan to play at the Coliseum in 2017 and 2018, and hope to stay there as the Oakland Raiders until the new stadium opens. We would love nothing more than to bring a championship back to the Bay Area."

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf made a last-ditch effort with a hand-delivered letter Sunday to NFL owners, as KRON 4 reports, reiterating the city's plan for a new $1.3 billion stadium for the team NFL commissioner Roger Goodell already responded to the Oakland plan over the weekend saying it "does not present a proposal that is clear and specific, actionable in a reasonable time frame, and free of major contingencies."

Some Oakland fans also wrote an open letter pleading with Davis to keep the team here.

The New York Times laid out the various reasons the team wants to make the move, which include Oakland city officials "dragging their feet" over the years to come up with a stadium plan, and long-held tensions between Al Davis and the city. The elder Davis is also said to have a great affinity for Las Vegas, which has been actively trying to woo the team and has promised to subsidize the new domed stadium with $750 million in public funds.

And the team has been looking to move for several years now, having lost out on a chance to move to Los Angeles, something that the NFL allowed both the Rams and the Chargers to do instead.

As of now, it looks like the Raiders will still be playing at the Oakland Coliseum through the 2020, with the Las Vegas stadium likely taking three years to build.

Meanwhile, someone already updated their Wikipedia page to say the team is based in Las Vegas.

Previously: Raiders File Paperwork With NFL To Move To Las Vegas

Suspended Oakland Raiders' player Aldon Smith was detained Thursday morning after a vehicle he was in struck an unmarked SFPD vehicle, injuring two officers, as ABC 7 reports. The incident happened outside SFPD headquarters near China Basin at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, and a 25-year female was said to be driving the SUV at the time. She was detained for driving under the influence, and Smith was detained for public intoxication.

Per KRON 4, the SUV is registered to Smith, and Smith told reporters as he left the police station that he "never hurt anyone," and he denied that he had been detained at all. He's not expected to be charged. But, they say, he was still "reeking of booze," which, at that hour of the morning, is pretty impressive.

Smith, 26, was suspended from the Raiders in November on substance abuse charges connected to an August 6, 2015 drunk driving incident that was the same incident that led to getting him released from his contract with the 49ers that year. Prior to that, there were several DUIs and a gun charge, and Smith has actually been arrested a total of five times since he began his NFL career in 2011.

You may recall that Smith, back when he played for the 49ers, was also connected to the December 2014 incident at Ray McDonald's San Jose home in which a woman accused McDonald of assaulting her while she was unconscious, at a time when Smith was at the house as well.

Meanwhile, Dennis O'Donnell at KPIX/CBS 5 is calling for the NFL to end Smith's suspension, saying "Smith is a troubled man who makes poor decisions that have put his career in jeopardy," but saying he's "never understood the NFL’s policy of substance abuse suspensions."

Previously: Now Aldon Smith's Been Suspended From The Raiders For Substance Abuse

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• Academy of Art student Payam Jafari, who's an Iranian national who's been studying in SF under an F-1 student visa for three years, is now stuck in his native Iran unable to return to school because of Trump's travel ban. [KRON 4]
• Billionaire Sheldon Adelson backs out of the Raiders' Las Vegas stadium deal, and Goldman Sachs now says they’re “re-evaluating” their relationship there too, potentially putting the project in jeopardy. [ESPN/ABC 7]
• Stanley Roberts focuses his 'People Behaving Badly' sights on Lyft's new SF hub, near 25th and Kansas in Potrero Hill, where neighbors are annoyed with drivers clogging the street and parking in driveways, etc. [KRON 4]
• Remember Timothy Doyle, the cyclist who got hit by an SFPD cruiser last May while he was riding in the bike lane and the incident was all captured by a dash cam? Well, he's healing but he says he's still not in great shape, and he's suing the city for pain, lost work, and other damages. [SF Streetsblog]
• The newest detailed report on California homicides from the state Department of Justice, covering 2015, shows that killings were up year over year for the second year in a row, but down 10 percent overall for the decade. And 29 percent of them were gang-related. [Chronicle]
• A 27-year-old inmate escaped the custody of out-of-state authorities who were transporting from jail in Alameda County Tuesday morning, for extradition to Kentucky. His name is Shawn New, and he escaped a vehicle at about 9:45 a.m. at Interstate 880 near A Street in Hayward. He's apparently wanted for a probation violation involving credit card fraud. [CBS 5] [WLWT]
• A woman claiming to have an explosive device briefly shut down the Tower Bridge and part of the Capitol Mall in Sacramento today, but she's now in custody. [CBS 5]
• A badly injured, 58-year-old San Francisco woman was rescued from an apparent kidnapping this morning in Sonoma County when her 54-year-old kidnapper, possibly drunk, drove his vehicle off the 101 highway. [CBS 5]
• A new plan to preserve the Mission’s diversity and cultural richness, a collaborative effort by multiple nonprofit groups and the city, dubbed the Mission Action Plan 2020, is now available for public comment. Its recommendations, which will need to be funded, include improving tenant protections, preserving single room occupancy rooms, preserving affordable housing, and building new affordable housing. [Mission Local]
• A fresh battle is underway stalling the handoff of SF-Tiburon ferry service between the Blue & Gold Fleet and Golden Gate Ferry, because they got an 11th hour legal challenge from the family-run Angel Island-Tiburon Ferry, which thinks Golden Gate Ferry's boats are too big and the dock needs realigning. [Chronicle]

The Oakland Raiders could become the Las Vegas Raiders in the not too distant future if the NFL agrees to let them move, and the team has just officially filed the paperwork seeking that permission, as NFL.com reports. This is just a first step in a relocation process, and it will require yes votes from three quarters of all NFL team owners, or 24 votes.

Vegas has been in the Raiders' sights for a few years now, and they've been publicly itching to move either there or somewhere besides Oakland — with a proposed move to Los Angeles involving a now abandoned idea to share a new stadium in the city of Carson, south of LA, with the San Diego Chargers. (The Chargers just completed their move out of San Diego to that stadium, which is called StubHub Center, and they're now the Los Angeles Chargers, joining the Rams in a city that just a few years ago had zero NFL teams.) Three years ago a San Antonio move was floated, and as of a year ago, the Raiders also shot down a proposal that they share Levi's Stadium with the 49ers.

Oakland has in recent years refused any subsidy rewards to the Raiders to keep them in town, a move that's been praised by sports economists, and Oakland has for years debated various plans for new baseball and football stadiums as the 50+-year-old Coliseum has been slowly crumbling — and they made the A's pay for their own stadium improvements when that team cut a deal three years ago to stay in town through 2024. There was this ambitious 2014 master plan for "Coliseum City" that included the construction of three new sports arenas, for baseball, football, and basketball, but now that the Warriors are fully committed to a San Francisco move that latter arena wouldn't be necessary. And as recently as last summer there was still discussion of converting a piece of Port of Oakland property near Jack London Square into a new stadium for the A's (but not the Raiders), an idea that's been discussed for many years without moving forward.

NFL.com says that Oakland has so far "not come up with a stadium proposal that league or independent sources believe is credible," and the Raiders organization is beyond impatient.

Meanwhile Las Vegas has rolled out the red carpet with $750 million in public funding for a Raiders stadium project and multiple potential development sites, as the Architect's Newspaper reports, and the Raiders took their glistening, $1.9 billion stadium design from Carson — designed by the same firm that's doing Oracle Arena, Manica Architecture — added a sun-shielding dome to it and plopped it into the Nevada desert. Fox 31 Denver reports that the project could take up to three years to build if and when it gets approved, so it seems unlikely that the Raiders would get to leave Oakland any sooner than the 2021 season.

The team has reportedly gotten financing commitments for the stadium projects from Goldman Sachs, as well as some pledge of help from casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, though he seems to be pushing for partial ownership of the team according to Pro Football Talk.

Seeking potential leverage in the Vegas deal, Raiders owner Mark Davis met in December with Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott, who's serving as spokesman for an investment group funded by Milwaukee Bucks owner Wesley Edens called the Fortress and Lott Group, which is trying to negotiate a deal to keep the Raiders in Oakland. Via PR guy Sam Singer, the Fortress and Lott Group sent out a statement on the Raiders Vegas paperwork saying that this was "expected," and "The Fortress and Lott group remains diligently focused on providing a plan and solution to the Raiders to remain in Oakland." To that end they "are working on completing the Exclusive Negotiating Agreement with the City of Oakland and County of Alameda... which should be completed in the coming weeks... [and] We are in this game and we are playing to win."

Some football fans are taking pleasure in Oakland's loss, now that they're potentially down two sports teams.

But Raider Nation is sure to be pissed overall.

Previously: The Raiders Really, Really Want To Leave Oakland

Passengers on a Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to Kansas City last week, the day of a football game between the Raiders and the Chiefs, managed a rare and thirsty feat of cleaning the entire plane out of booze. Travel Pulse broke the story via a tweet from a sports writer on the plane, Jimmy Durkin, who reported that the pilot got on the PA to "congratulate" everyone for wiping them out of alcohol, and "Yep, it's a Raiders flight."

Durkin later told Fox News that the crowd on the plane was "Not particularly rowdy... and yeah, a decent amount of folks in Raiders gear. Pretty standard fare for a flight to a city where the Raiders are playing.”

On such a short flight, just three hours and 20 minutes with probably 40 minutes of taxiing, takeoff, and landing, that means that those Raiders fans gulped down an impressive number of beers, mini wines, and mini bottles of hooch in just two hours and twenty minutes.

But to anyone who's been to a Raiders game ever that probably isn't surprising.

Sadly for all those die-hards who flew to Kansas City to see them play, the Raiders lost the game 21-13, ending a six-game winning streak. That leaves them tied at 10 games with the Chiefs, both vying for a wild card spot in the playoffs.

The Falcons had the Raiders fans fighting each other today. 😂 pic.twitter.com/QQnSVFfw68

— Everything Georgia (@GAFollowers) September 19, 2016

Raiders fans are not a typically quiet bunch, and today we can add one more criticism to the list: terrible karate moves. Video from Sunday's home game against the Falcons shows what has to be one of the most interesting fights to grace the Coliseum in years.

Two men, both wearing Raiders jerseys, face off in the video. In it, one stands in a calm and unthreatening manner, while the other squats and moves his arms as if he's attempting to channel his inner warrior. After the significantly shorter of the two knocks the sunglasses off the calm man's face, he retracts into his crouched pose — perhaps waiting for a retaliatory strike.

And retaliate the aggrieved and shade-less man does — with a quick left-swing followed by a right. A bystander throws himself into the mix, and sucker-punches the dazed karate enthusiast, who quickly collapses on the stairs.

"He deserved it," says someone near by.

It should, of course, be noted that sports fan-on-fan violence is a very serious thing and should be treated as such — a fact we're sure the aspiring karate master is now pondering while holding an ice pack to his head.

If he's not in jail, that is.

Related: Video: Teen Who Ran On Field During 49ers Game Raises Stadium Security Concerns

For NFL fans, Twitter has mostly just been a platform for issuing death threats to placekickers who miss crucial field goals. But that all changes tonight, when Twitter begins livestreaming Thursday Night Football, which it will do for much of the season, starting with the New York Jets-Buffalo Bills contest at 5:25 p.m. PT. According to an email this reporter received from Twitter about an hour ago, the games will be streamed “in full HD” though pretty every internet video stream claims to be “full HD” these days regardless of its actual picture quality.

Still, this is a nice development for cord-cutting fans and a banner moment for the recently-beleaguered Twitter (unless the platform crashes again, of course). The game stream will be available — completely for free, with no cable subscription or Twitter account required — at TNF.twitter.com or on your Moments tab, which is the “lightning bolt” icon that you only ever click on by accident.

The stream will also feature a prominent sidebar of “game-related tweets” that promise a mix of targeted brand advertisements and hashtagged tweets from regular users that are by and large so illiterate they make YouTube comments look like Isaac Asimov footnotes.

What is novel here is that this stream will be available on all smartphones and tablets, a luxury not afforded to most NFL livestream watchers. Because of the NFL’s exclusive deal with Verizon, most regular season game livestreams are only available on smartphones to Verizon customers. Furthermore, those streams require an additional app, whereas Thursday Night Football on Twitter will be streamed on all mobile browsers, with no auxiliary app install required.

For local 49ers and Raiders fans, your teams’ obligatory Thursday Night Football appearances are 49ers-Cardinals (October 6) and Raiders-Chiefs (December 8), both of which will be streamed on Twitter as well. Twitter will be livestreaming all of the Thursday games broadcast on CBS and NBC, but not those broadcast on the NFL Network. That means 10 Thursday night games are livestreaming for free, and here is that schedule for cable-avoiding cheapskates:

• Week 2, Sept. 15: New York Jets at Buffalo Bills


• Week 3, Sept. 22: Houston Texans at New England Patriots


• Week 5, Oct. 6: Arizona Cardinals at San Francisco 49ers


• Week 6, Oct. 13: Denver Broncos at San Diego Chargers


• Week 7, Oct. 20: Chicago Bears at Green Bay Packers


• Week 11, Nov. 17: New Orleans Saints at Carolina Panthers


• Week 13, Dec. 1: Dallas Cowboys at Minnesota Vikings


• Week 14, Dec. 8: Oakland Raiders at Kansas City Chiefs


• Week 15, Dec. 15: Los Angeles Rams at Seattle Seahawks


• Week 16, Dec. 22: New York Giants at Philadelphia Eagles

Related: Here's What You Do With An Inflatable Penis At A 49ers Game