www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/25/SPJPUM98P.DTL&tsp=1"> get into a nasty spitball spat with Lane Kiffin. Apparently, Al is a little upset that the Raiders once again didn't have a winning season and blames himself Lane. He is also pretty miffed that Lane talked him into trading Randy Moss. It's a little unclear as to what is going on as ESPN and the Chron have differing accounts but it appears that Al is trying to get Lane to quit so he doesn't have to fire him. ...

-With tonight's 108-82 win against the running joke that is the New York Knicks (seriously, what does it take to get fired in that organization?), the Warriors have now won three in a row and are one game from totaling the amount of wins our local football teams have. The Beard led the way with 31 points, seven assists and six rebounds and Stephen Jackson got 23 points. For the Knicks, Starbury played his first game of the season showing that blackmail does work ...

A hurrah and a huzzah goes out to Raider Nation for not selling out Sunday's Raiders game. As a result, football fans throughout the area will be allowed to watch The. Biggest. Game. Ever. from the vicinity of their couch. ...

The Raiders have a new QB, at least for the moment. That QB is Daunte Culpepper, Randy Moss' ex-ball chucker. He had a little tryout for the team yesterday and it went so well, he was signed. Which is one way of looking at it. The other way of looking at it is that a deep connection was made between two desperate entities as Culpepper came in overweight and was said to be "spotty" with his passes. Culpepper is a pretty good fit as current Raiders QBs Josh McNown or Andrew Walter kinda suck. He's expected to keep the chair warm until first round draft pick JaMarcus Russell is ready to go. ...

Now here's some more interesting news that came out of yesterday's draft-- Randy Moss has been traded to the Patriots. For a measly fourth round draft pick. The team then traded one of their fourth round picks to the Lions for Josh McNown and WR Mike Williams, both of whom can be described by the phrase "whatever."...

-The Sharks clinched a playoff spot with a win over the LA Kings, 3-1. Sure, it was pretty much a given but it's still nice to say. Patrick Marleau had two goals and one assist to lead the way. -Frank Gore is now making bank. -Athletics Nation tries to make sense of the A's spring stats. -Tim Kawakami gives us today's "what will the Raiders do with their draft pick" post. -Ray Ratto takes up......

-Warriors road woes continue as they get rolled by the Milwaukee Bucks, 122-101. Are the nails being placed in the coffin? Tim Kawakami moves past the standard "will the Warriors make the playoffs" story to give the eulogy for another Warriors season that bites the dust. ...

R.I.P Barbaro. -Sharks lose to the Vancouver Canucks 3-1. Their penalty killing fu, however, has gotten really good. -Marvelous Norv Turner really wants to go to Dallas. -The Warriors 2.0 are built for Nellie Ball. Also really good at stealing. -Ann Killion thinks New Orleans should host the Super Bowl every other year. -Ira Miller lurves Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith. -Should the Monday after the Super Bowl be a day off so everyone can......

So imagine you have a job. And imagine you're really good at your job. You know it, your coworkers know it, and your bosses know it. Now imagine that there's a management position that opens up which would be a great promotion for you. So you apply for it. You think you would be great at the job, your coworkers think you would be great at the job and your friends think you would be great at the job. Now imagine that instead of you getting the job, the head of the company give it to some snot nosed punk straight out of school with no experience. Welcome to Rob Ryan's world...

-So we've already had our say about Art's canning, but what does everyone else say? Ray Ratto wishes whomever the next coach is good luck and Gwen Knapp thinks it should be the Mulleted One (as does Don Banks on CNNSI). Raiders Fan House runs down a list of candidates as does Inside Bay Area. In the national sites, Deadspin wonders if Al and Art are the new Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner and ESPN's Mark Kreidler thinks Al needs to get over himself and hire some big name guy. Over in San Jose, Mark Purdy picks Bill Cowher out of his ass as a potential replacement. ...

-In a surprise to no one, battle looms over free WiFi. We'd be more surprised if this thing ever happens. ...

With the Raiders, well, you know, everyone's kind of sitting back and waiting for Randy Moss to do something disruptive. It hasn't happened yet. Oh, he's given us glimpses of the Randy Moss Experience, but so far but he hasn't exploded yet. He's getting closer. ...

Raiders 22, Cardinals 9-- Stupid Raiders can't even win for winning these days. Here they were with an opportunity to do something historic, something almost impossible, something for which they'd be remembered for years and they had to go blow it by winning. Now they are what they are and only what they are-- a crappy football team. Oh, they could’ a been a contender, but no. ...

Somewhere, a lot of really good, exciting football games were on TV. Just not here. Chiefs 41, 49ers 0: Worst. Loss. Ever. No, seriously, it was the worst shutout loss in 49ers history. It doesn't get better once you look at the stats either. The Niners total offense racked up less than 200 yards, Smith got sacked five times, they committed five turnovers, and the Niners couldn't touch backup QB Damon Huard once. Something to definitely to worry about too is that the Niners have fallen behind early in three of their games, to the tune of being outscored 82-20 in the first half over the season. In the first two, they rallied somewhat. This week, nothing. And there D has now given up 79 points in two games. Say goodnight to all those excited Niners fans. ...

Chargers 27 Raiders 0- Well, that didn't go well. It went so well, in fact, Aaron Brooks got himself already benched and we had him making it halfway through the season before getting benched. Typical Raiders-- all the hype, all the energy, all the excitement that was created before this game (the tailgaiting started early Monday morning) and they totally laid an egg. In sort-of Prime Time. Even more revealing, everybody in the world knew the Chargers were going to run the ball and everybody knows they weren't going to let Phillip Rivers throw the ball and yet the Raiders gave up 131 yards to Tomlinson. The countdown to the Randy Moss explosion begins now. ...

Thank goodness. It is here. Let the games count once more, o sweet departed St. Tagliabue, let the National Football League's Regular Season mercifully come. Once more for our entertainment, the 32 franchises will clamber over one another to reach the Vince Lombardi Trophy like kittens chasing a moth. Let's see how our Oakland Raiders are doing, shall we? ...

You know how sometimes you get bored at work and for maybe half-an-hour or so you start daydreaming about what you're going to have to eat, about checking e-mail, or about doing certain things to a coworker that they wouldn’t dare show on Skinemax? Now imagine you're a starting pitcher and can't just surf the Web to take a mental break. What do you do? Well, if you're Matt Morris, you take a perfectly pitched game and start giving up runs. Which is what he did, almost blowing a 7-1 lead to let the Braves get back into the game. Morris seems to do that a lot-- pitch well except for one inning in which he throws batting practice out there. ...

Norv Turner, late of our Raiders, now has been hired to be our 49ers' offensive coordinator. Please, remain calm. Now, before anyone leaps to the logical conclusion that this is a very, very bad idea, let us consider the possibility -- however unlikely -- that this may be a good idea. ...

In a move pretty much expected by everyone, the Rai-duhs today fired head coach Norv Turner. Turner was the coach for only two seasons, but managed to suck in both of them. Well, okay, that's a little harsh. Let's just say the team sucked in both of them, going 9-23 over the past two years. And it might not be all of Norv's fault as already, the stories are being leaked about Al constantly looking over his shoulder and telling him what to do. This year was an even bigger disappointment as the team was expected to maybe not get to the playoffs but to at least be fairly entertaining when they signed both Randy Moss and LaMont Jordan in the off-season. They were neither. In fact, from an offensive standpoint, they were pretty awful, coming in as only the 21st ranked offense in the NFL. ...

A couple of months ago, Randy Moss admitted to Bryant Gumbel on HBO's "Real Sports" (a great, underrated show, by the way) that he sometimes, every once in awhile, liked to smoke a little reefer. He didn't say he still does, or he does during the season, or even that he does gravity bongs with Snoop Dog and Donald Rumsfield at after-game parites. He just said that he "likes to have fun." Granted, in these......

Let the record show that we have serious issues with anything related to exhibition pre-season football. We hate how hyped they are, hate how seriously they're taken, and we especially hate how they put the games on TV when we want to watch something else. All this for a game primarily played by a bunch of people fighting to not be cut. Nevertheless, this week features the debut appearance of both Bay Area teams,......

In the "Um, yeah, but Rich Gannon's practically a member of AARP and Kerry Collins is a chump" department, agent Dante DiTrapano is confirming the news (which will stay unofficial until the trading period opens on March 2nd) that Minnesota Viking Randy Moss is going to become part of the Silver and Black Attack. He'll be joining recently re-signed Jerry Porter in what looks like on paper as a pretty impressive wide receiver package......