The Rome report

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

I would like to send my sincere apologies to Joe Paterno and his Penn State Nittany Lions because I must have jinxed them. People who read my commentary know that I put the Nittany Lions in the championship game a couple of weeks ago because of their “easy” schedule. Well, it turns out their schedule wasn’t so easy after all. Penn State lost to Iowa 24-23 this past Saturday. The loss destroyed any hopes of Penn State getting to the title game. The Nittany Lions were going to have a hard time getting to the title game. Even if they went undefeated, they were still in danger of being jumped by a one-loss Big 12 or SEC team. With the perceived weakness of the Big Ten, Penn State will fall too far back in the rankings to make another run at the title game. I would like to think that the Rose Bowl will be a nice consolation prize for JoePa and the Nittany Lions, but I don’t think they will feel so good after they suffer a blowout loss to Southern Cal in Pasadena.

NFL

Only the Raiders could sign a guy to a seven-year, $72 million contract and cut him eight games into the season. The DeAngelo Hall fiasco is just a microcosm of the problems in Oakland. Bad management is killing the Raiders. You can say what you want about the players; in the NFL you will not win if you have incompetent management. I know that Al Davis wants to keep control of the team, but if he ever wants to see the Raiders have another good season, he needs to relinquish control to someone else. Davis just simply can’t get the job anymore and the Hall situation is proof of it. There were several problems with the Hall contract:

1. Davis traded away a second and fifth-round draft pick to the Atlanta Falcons to acquire Hall.

2. The Raiders already had a cornerback that is ten times better than Hall that they refused to give a long term contract to. Nnamdi Asomugha is known as one of the best corners in the game. Everyone in the NFL would agree Asomugha is better than Hall but Davis thought it would be better to give that money to Hall instead.

3. Hall is overrated. There was a reason the Falcons were willing to part with Hall. With an increasing number of teams in the league going to three-wide receiver sets, you can never have enough defensive backs on your team. Would the Falcons trade Hall, a former first-round pick, if they thought he was that good? Probably not.

At least, someone in the Raiders organization saw what they should have seen before they made this deal. I just wish they would have seen it before they paid Hall $8 million for eight games. A million dollars per game, that would make even A-Rod jealous.