As I'm waiting to scroll through to tonight's Mets game from where I put ESPn on pause, the network is airing its new documentary,
The Many Lives of Lane Kiffin.
I look at that title and I wonder, "why is there an unnecessary 'v' in the middle of the third word? Typo?"
But, no, they're in straight-up Kiss-Kiffin's-Ass mode. Poor dead Al Davis takes it in the neck because he isn't there to defend himself. Granted, you can say Al got hoist on his own petard, because he'd pissed off so many in the press that they were eager to spew Kiffin's "gosh, I'm just a poor country boy who wants to coach, but that crazy old man won't let me call my own plays" crap (Ray Ratto of the
San Francisco Chronicle is all over this section), but when they show the footage of the press conference where Davis fires Kiffen for all the "lying" and the "propaganda", the docu ignores the actual words in Davis's open letter which he has projected on the screen behind him…
Quote:
"In addition, no one has ever told you during a game what to do on either offense or defense, and you call every play on offense. During a game, if you want to blitz more, all you have to do is let [Defensive Coordinator] Rob [Ryan] know what blitz you want and he will do it."
—Al Davis letter, visible on the screen.
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But no, they only play the soundbite of Davis defending drafting JaMarcus Russell (admittedly a terrible pick, even the mention of it had me screaming "TRADE DOWN AND TAKE PETERSON!!" as I did at the time") and Kiffin doing his "aw, shucks" crap and going "Okay, this is bad what he's saying, but also…how serious [sic] are you really taking this when you're listening to it".
Riiiiiiight, Lane. You totally didn't play to Davis's haters in the press, not you, no never!
And then we skip over to Tennessee, where we gloss over all the recruiting violations Kiffin quickly racked up, and have a clip from Layla Kiffin saying that naming their son "Knox" was all her idea, rather than the footage of Lane saying that he named the kid that because he LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVED Tennessee so much and he was never, ever, gonna leave Knoxville, nope!
Cripes, I'd hate to be that kid…
(Do I stick through the USC segment, or skip to the Mets?)
Oh, cool, they're blaming the USC collapse in 2012-13 on the sanctions from 2010, even though the Trojans went 10-2 in 2011 and were #1 in the polls going into 2012. F' this…
[Further venom redacted. We don't need to revisit the Raiders-Chargers game after the bye week in '07. Let's Go, Mets!]