To no one’s surprise, Raiders head coach Tom Cable failed to shed much light on his alleged assault of defensive assistant Randy Hanson in comments to the press Monday night.
According to the Oakland Tribune’s Jerry McDonald, Cable said, “It’s an internal matter and that’s all I’m going to say.”
Cable repeated it two more times just in case reporters thought he might crack.
Oakland’s players, however, said it all with their actions before practice started. The team reportedly started chanting “Cable, Bumaye!” while in warmups.
The hilarious and impressive reference is to Muhammad Ali’s fight with George Foreman in Zaire, where the pro-Ali crowd’s chant can roughly be translated to “Kill him!”
It’s a safe bet that some enterprising Raiders fan is manufacturing T-shirts as we speak with the phrase on it. Or at least someone should be. [Editor’s note: Sorry, Gregg . . . we’ve already diverted your salary for the month to the “Orton Hears A Boo” bumper stickers.]
The team may be finding humor in the situation -- heck, it might become a rallying cry -- but Cable could face serious repercussions from the incident. The chant certainly won’t dispel multiple reports that Cable broke Hanson’s jaw.
One also has to wonder about Hanson’s future with the team. He didn’t hear the chant because he was the only Raiders coach absent from practice Monday.
When Hanson hears what happened, he might not enjoy the “Cable, Bumaye!” chant as much as we do.