Sep 22nd 2008 9:03PM by Michael David Smith (author feed)
Filed under: Raiders, NFL Media Watch, NFL VideoThe video below comes from the press conference that Oakland Raiders coach Lane Kiffin had today. And what looks at first like an ordinary press conference (at least, as ordinary as it can get for a coach who doesn’t know if he’s going to be fired today or not) turns into a near-fistfight:

At the end of the video, Tim Kawakami of the nearly gets into a fight with Raiders executive John Herrera, who is probably the closest person in the organization to owner Al Davis. Kawakami gives his side of what happened here.

Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk explains that the fight was fallout from the widely held belief that Herrera distributed an article critical of Kiffin to members of the local media. Bottom line: The Raiders’ owner and his top deputy are doing their best to undermine the coach, while the coach waits to get fired and the media nearly come to blows with team executives. Yeah, I’d say they’ve got a real healthy thing going on in Oakland.