We’ve come to expect boorish, misguided behavior from Raiders exec John Herrera, who most recently wanted to ban former Oakland quarterback and current CBS broadcaster Rich Gannonfrom the building, applying an all-too-literal interpretation to Gannon’s suggestion that owner Al Davis should “blow up the building.”
Apparently, one of the newest Raiders has applied a “When in Rome” approach to his assimilation. Defensive lineman Richard Seymour did his best Herrera impression (sans the “Get your f–king hands of me” admonition) after Sunday’s embarrassing home loss to the Broncos.
Seymour drew a penalty during the game for pulling the hair of Broncos offensive lineman Ryan Clady. The half-the-distance walk-off moved the ball 14 yards closer to the Raiders’ end zone, allowing Denver to eventually add another seven points, which pushed the lead to 20-3.
After the game, Lowell Cohn of the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat asked Seymour about the incident. But Seymour wasn’t interested in talking about it.
The full dialogue is right here.
First, Seymour tried the “next question” routine. Then, he escalated it to twice telling Cohn, “Get out of here.”
Eventually, Seymour refused to talk until Cohn left. Cohn didn’t leave, and Seymour didn’t talk to the other reporters, even after Cohn finally walked away.
Cohn contends that Raiders P.R. exec Mike Taylor thereafter accused Cohn of “inciting” Seymour and “berated” Cohn for ten minutes in the press box.
“He kept saying I had incited his player,” Cohn writes regarding Taylor. “He called me an unflattering name. I offered to tell him my side of the story but he didn’t listen, kept talking about my incitement. At a certain point I felt he was harassing me so I put in my ear pieces and began listening to my taped interviews while he kept telling other journalists, who were trying to work, that I had incited Seymour.”
Though, amazingly, Herrera was not involved in this one, Taylor and Herrera have been regarded as the closest confidants of the owner over the past year. They were, it is believed, the only ones in the organization to whom Davis was listening during the ugliness in connection with the termination of coach Lane Kiffin, who worked his last game with the team one year ago today.
So something is wrong in Oakland. Taylor (if Cohn’s contentions are accurate) and Herrera have shown a stunning lack of professionalism and maturity, which simply does not reflect the basic standard of behavior to which the NFL aspires. It’s wrong, and the team or the league office need to address it.
But, hey, at least they haven’t broken anyone’s jaw.
Yet.
Allegedly.
JUST LOSE BABY!
I give the benefit of the doubt to anyone who has a run-in or argument or fight with a reporter. This is because reporters are paid to cause arguments and controversy. That is their job.
Hmm. A take about reporters? Let’s stick to football.
How dare a reporter ask the new star player why he made a 15 yard penalty! The nerve!
Get a hair cut!!!! Plus Ricky Williams got tackled by the hair with no penalty. I thought hair was fair game.
This is beyond laughable and lowly inching its way toward bizzare. When I read these stories every emotion possible hits me, Happiness, sadness, anger, disbelief, shock, so and so forth. The only question Im now left with is…What the f–k is going on? You would think these guys would be treating the reporters with nothingless than love and affection with the hopes that reporters would write good things about them. I mean seriously, its took roughly 21 days to corrupt Seymour, who for the most part knew his role and didnt step too far out of line in NE. Davis, Herrera, and Taylor are like those parents who refuse to discipline their kids because deep down they believe their kids are good boys. Even though in reality their kids are arsonists, bullies, and overall juvenile delinquents. The worst part is they wouldnt be juvenile delinquents if, every once in awhile, they were put in time out or grounded or had their iPod taken away. Its an organization of enablers.
“So something is wrong in Oakland. ”
Captain Obvious strikes again! Well done, Sir!
Ah, the soap that is Oakland and the CryptKeeper! Gotta love every minute of this – being that they foster resentment from around the nation.
Hey Leatherneck,
Those kind of weak takes work better at Deadspin, where they are mistaken for being witty and incisive.
THIS BLOG HAS BEEN COMPROMISED BY NBC SPONSORSHIP. FLORIO HAS SOLD OUT. IF ANY OTHER BROADCASTER HAD JOKED ABOUT DRINKING AND DRIVING, THE WAY AL MICHAELS DID LAST NIGHT, FLORIO WOULD HAVE BEEN ALL OVER THEM. FREE THIS BLOG!!!!!
At least the QB had a good day…oh, wait.
But at least Greg Ellis gets to rush the passer on every play. He’s got three sacks in three games on a 1-2 team and couldn’t be happier.
Wow a player who doesn’t want to talk to the media, that’s crazy! This happens every week, why is this a story, oh I know…….it’s the Raiders
Arch Lich Al Davis is firmly entrenched as Emperor of Crazyland Raiduhland, as his loyal, deranged minions bull rush from reporter to reporter, apparently threatening anyone who dares to point out that the Emperor has no clue.
Never thought I’d say it, but I feel sorry for the Oakland fans.
Cohn was accused of “inciting” the player? Taylor makes it seems as though Seymour is a caged lion at the zoo, not a professional football player.
I guess Big Sey really loves it in Oakland.
and can you PLEASE FIX THE FRICKEN LOGIN thing already. UGGH.
And the Commitment to Excrement continues on. Raider fans, I feel sorry for you guys.
Oakland. What’s true of the city is true of the Raiders. There’s no “there” there…
I agree with ras6111…
I thought several years ago the league ruled that hair was to be considered “part of the uniform”
“standard of behavior to which the NFL aspires”
You mean Goodell wants them to stop going to the skrip clubs with Pacman??
riiight vox..versus a 1-1 team (which will be 1-2 after tonight), that has NO sacks…thats right..the entire TEAM has NO sacks. no one here drinks your biased cowboy kool-aid. Even the raiders have more division titles, super bowl appearences, and play-off wins then the choke-boys this decade…
you should just never post on this site again.
I hear that NBC sponsorship has compromised this blog.
Seymour had a right to be pissed. Hair is part of the uniform. This was made blatantly public after Larry Johnson’s hair-tackle of Polamalu.
In other news, everyone knows the Raiders are pricks top-to-bottom.
And pfinfl, if that’s what you want, you’re on the wrong site. This is a blog, not a news site. If you don’t know the difference, then use that Google-thingy that all the kids are talkin’ about these days.
JaMarcus Russell’s stats,and ranking, thru 3 games:
QB rating 39.8 – 33rd
Completion % 41.3 – 33rd
Yds per attempt 5.04 – 32nd
Yds per game 378 – 30th
He’s a keeper.
So let me get this straight…
A reporter harasses Seymour, and that is accepted as “good reporting”. A manager (Mike Taylor) comes in to defend his employee and harasses the reporter, and it the manger’s fault?
Sounds like the reporter (Cohn) can dish it out, but can’t take it.
Did you soil your pants when you wrote this Florio? Seriously, is this newsworthy? Have you ever been poked after a bad day at work and snapped? Did you not have a cool boss who took up for you? Get a grip. The Raiders are a bad team, established, the team has some dysfunction, established, can we not write an article everytime a Raider takes a S&^%?
You and every other member of the media only fuels this fire.
At least McFadden is a bright spot, his rushing stats & ranking in the first 3 games:
Longest run, 15 yds – 58th
Yds per attempt, 3.6 – 36th
Yds per game, 49.3 – 32nd
Rushing yds, 148 – 28th.
But, with his 3 fumbles leading the league, he is 1st in something.
McFadden & Jamarcus are quite the offensive tandem.
Boy, Al can pick em.
Hmm, players come to NE and they (mostly) become model citizens. They go to the Raiders and they become class A jerks.
“riiight vox..versus a 1-1 team (which will be 1-2 after tonight), that has NO sacks…thats right..the entire TEAM has NO sacks. no one here drinks your biased cowboy kool-aid. Even the raiders have more division titles, super bowl appearences, and play-off wins then the choke-boys this decade…”
Dude, there’s no way around the fact that the Faiders are one of the worst teams in the NFL. Not sure what the Cowboys have to do with that, aside from the inevitable ghetto-style beat-down they’ll give the Faiders on Thanksgiving. This will be the 7th losing season in a row for your boys. Congrats.
Seymour as been doing this crap for years. No story there. The team’s response ,however, was ridiculous. If JaMarcus had any hair Big Sey would be grabbing it in practice tomorrow. It’s time Al………. pull the plug on the J-rock era before you lose the rest of the players.
(sarcasm) Guess the Raiders showed Rich Gannon how wrong he was in his comments.
The Al Davis “Commitment To Excrement”. “Al should be Commited” continues toward another record of at least 11 L’s 7 years in a row.
Please just sell the team you clueless bastard.
“The Greatness Of The Raiders Is In Its Future” Ya when no Davis is part of it.
Matt Maiocco is an Alex Smith groupie. A week after Shaun Hill directed an 80-yd game winning drive that was full of plays and pass completions when SF’s running game went kaput in its season opener v. Zona — Maiocco actually asked Singletary if Hill was the type of QB who could win a game by making enough plays to carry his team.
In 5 years, Maiocco never asked this question about Smith. When Maiocco took heat for dogging Hill where he wouldn’t dog Smith, Cohn blogged a Q&A with Ira Miller that had Miller parroting Maiocco’s “question” about Hill. Miller did *not* watch SF v. Zona.
Relevance: It ALL depends on who YOUR tribe is.
Cohn belongs to the tribe of paper-skinned “journalists” who carry their OWN agendas into locker rooms.
Seymour’s tribe, this season, is Silver and Black.
It ain’t rocket science.
A majority of the journos are dbags and they definitely try to incite you to get a story out of nothing
Mike Taylor? Waylon Smithers has a brother?
Did Cohn actually say ” Can I trouble you to tell me what happened?”… It would be interesting to see if the conversation was recorded, because Cohn’s take sounds contrived.
Seymour said “Next question” and when the reporter continued to ask, Seymour asked him to leave. Of course the reporter did not move to another question, because the press has a right to get into your grill right, especially after an embarassing lose.
Cohn was wrong to push when the athlete did not want to talk.
I’m guessing most of the people commenting didn’t see the play. Sadly, the OAK game was the only one on in my market. But Seymour behaved horribly, not only was he yanking on Clady’s hair after the play he kept pulling until the Clady’s helmet came off.
You can tackle a guy by his hair during the play, since it is considered part of his uniform, but this play was long over and Seymour was acting like a little bitch.
REBUILD REBUILD no more pretending trying to become a good team face it raiders are done.
Time to rebuild
# stanjam says: September 28, 2009 10:31 AM
Hmm, players come to NE and they (mostly) become model citizens. They go to the Raiders and they become class A jerks.
_____________________________________
I think you are a Pats fan as am I but I have NEVER thought of Seymour as a “model Patriot” . He whined too much to the media and was a more publicly self centered player than most of them. Is he a great player? Yes. Is the NE defense better without him this year? No. But he was always out for #1, which is fine, yet he expected the Pats to treat him with kid gloves. Hypocrisy I cannot stand.
all the morons stating that “hair is part of the uniform” must not have seen the part where seymour tackled clady, after the whistle, then proceeded to try and pull him back down, by the hair, after clady was getting back up.
i guess seymour is just embracing his new uniform
raiders suck
Great Dick Seymour video!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nVOjYZRIC4
Seymour likes everyone to kiss his ass. Nothing new there. The Raiders PR people were simply doing as he wanted.
He’s a Raider now. The best part of his career is over. We’ll see him dogging it every week now.
I’d be cranky too if I was forced to work for the Raiders…
It was definitely a cheap shot play and anybody who saw the play would agree. I’m sure Al Davis was smiling about it as we know how much he loves the Broncos.
Mr. Florio,
I was in the locker room where the initial confrontation took place.
That would be the place where Mr. Cohn and Mr. Taylor first started/ had the discussion regarding Mr. Cohn’s insistent questioning of Mr. Seymour.
My first thought on the subject : Mr. Cohn wasn’t interviewing Deep Throat spilling his/her guts re: WaterGate. It was a football game. Would this have even been a blip on the radar if Seymour (allegedly) pulled hair as a Patriot?
In fact, per the 2009 Officiating Presentations For Media and Networks I attended, pulling hair to tackle is permitted. That is not to say the action is allowable, or was not unnecessary roughness, but just to show by rule, tackling someone by the hair is allowed.
My second thought: both you and Mr. Cohn left out the part where Mr. Cohn exclaims loudly from the middle of the locker room , “Mike you are an uninformed a–hole”.
My third thought: Whatever happened to journalistic integrity?