DeAngelo Hall Claims Al Davis Didn't Know Anything About Tom Cable

Last season, the Raiders paid DeAngleo Hall $8 million for eight weeks of service before cutting bait. Not the best use of the salary cap, but it makes sense when put in perspective: Oakland has had four coaches, four quarterbacks and 16 wins in four years. Blowing $8 million on Hall is nothing.

Hall wasn't out of work long; he signed with the Redskins and played well enough to get a long-term deal (apparently, leaving Oakland is good for your career).

But even days after Al Davis released him, he had nothing but good things to say about Lane Kiffin's archnemesis, telling the Sports Bog's Dan Steinberg: "It wasn't so much that it didn't work. Al Davis is a great guy, he's an honest guy, and what he told me was, 'We're not as good as I thought we were as a team, so we need to try to clear up some [cap] room.'"

But during a recent radio interview on WJFK (Washington, DC), Hall stopped being polite and started getting real. Or something:

"Probably the funniest thing, I was pretty close to Lane Kiffin...and after they fired Lane and were about to announce who the next coach was - I don't know if you guys saw this in the media world, but I was actually sitting there live, me and a couple other players there in the back. And [Davis] went through this whole spiel of what happened...and said our next coach is Tom Cable, he's going to be our interim coach.

When everybody paused for Tom to come in, like a breakoff. [Davis] goes to the media guide and not even whispering says 'hey, anyone got any information on this Tom Cable guy, I don't know where he comes from.' That's just vintage Al Davis. Making a move, not really knowing why, no real justification for doing it. But just saying, 'hey, I want this guy, let's get him, I'll figure everything else out later.' And that's just how Al Davis is."

Yes, that's just how Al Davis rolls. No idea if it's true, but it certainly seems plausible. On the upside, maybe Davis hiring a guy he knows nothing about is the best thing for the organization. I mean, if every instinct Big Al has is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.

via PFT