A lunatic in Oakland, a loudmouth in Miami Denver Broncos News at Broncosclub.com

Will the Raiders' Crypt Keeper drive the final nail in the Kiffin? Can Ed cope with the devastation stemming from his erroneous and premature whistle? Is Joey certifiable? Will Brad and Tarvaris (Bravaris?) ever find happiness? Can Keary and Koren avoid the Curse of King County?

As the NFL turns, these are the Sundays of our lives.

Nail in the Kiffin

Anyone wondering what it would be like to have Uncle Junior running an NFL team from the psych ward need look no further than Al Davis's bizarre and regrettable treatment of Lane Kiffin.

After reaching the Super Bowl in Bill Callahan's first season in 2002, the Raiders went 4-12 under Callahan the following year, 9-23 under Norv Turner in 2004 and 2005 and 2-14 under Art Shell in 2006. Kiffin was brought in to try to turn around a franchise that had just gone 15-49 in the previous four years.

He doubled his predecessor's win total, albeit with a modest 4-12 mark last year. The defense has some legit players in Derrick Burgess, Kirk Morrison, Thomas Howard and Nnamdi Asomugha. The offense still looks hamstrung by the inexperience of JaMarcus Russell, but it did pound out 300 yards on the ground in a 23-8 road rout of Kansas City.

So why did Kiffin have to spend the whole week with the Sword of Damocles hanging over him and with Raider officials disseminating articles to the press that were critical of the coach?

Because Al Davis has lost it.

He keeps expecting coaches to come in and turn things around right away. But that's not how things work when you've been shooting blanks on draft day for a decade. Kiffin deserves a shot at the very least to oversee the development of Russell and Darren McFadden. But at this point, having made a deal with Mephistopheles, perhaps he'd prefer just to be put out of his misery.

As to why Davis hasn't pulled the trigger already despite his reported unhappiness, maybe he hasn't finished scouring the bed and breakfasts of America to find his next offensive coordinator. Is there a single person in Raider Nation who is happy that Al is still calling the shots?

NFL Week 3

Week 3 action

Cardinals at Redskins

Buccaneers at Bears

Panthers at Vikings

Chiefs at Falcons

Raiders at Bills

Dolphins at Patriots

Bengals at Giants

Texans at Titans

Saints at Broncos

Lions at 49ers

Rams at Seahawks

Jaguars at Colts

Steelers at Eagles

Browns at Ravens

Cowboys at Packers

Jets at Chargers

Analysis

Whitlock: 10 NFL Truths
Schein: This week's Hot Seat
Marvez: Hurricanes costly to Texans
Power Rankings: QBs gone wild

Photos

NFL Week 2's best
Monday night shootout
Biggest moments
Best of NFL fans

Hochuli's Labors

Bong...you've got hate mail! Sure, referee Ed Hochuli must be a little depressed when he opens his inbox, but imagine how bummed he was when he first went under the hood and saw the magnitude of his mistake. Of course the rest of us realized it in real time. It was only Hochuli who needed it slowed down and replayed to see what was perfectly clear to everyone else.

There were no mitigating circumstances. He was in perfect position. Visibility was perfect. His biceps were not blocking his line of sight. The ball sailed backward out of Jay Cutler's hand right in front of Hochuli's face. It was the kind of call a guy could get right after 50 keg laps. It was worse than Phil Luckett at his worst or Bill Leavy's crew in Super Bowl XL.

There still would have been a way out of the whole mess had Hochuli just held off on blowing his whistle for a two-count. But once he'd missed it AND blown the play dead all he could do was hope Denver wouldn't convert 3rd-and-goal from the 10. (Could anyone have blamed him if he had just called holding on the next two plays to make things right?) But the Broncos did convert and then — as if just to make life that much more miserable for Pipes Hochuli — went for two and made it, denying the Chargers a shot at OT.

Now given that Hochuli's blown call on a prematurely blown whistle was the talk of every football fan in America last Sunday evening, the one thing we didn't have to worry about on Monday night was a repeat of the PBW (prematurely blown whistle). I mean, surely a directive went out to all the crews, reminding them to let the plays play out to their conclusions. For example, no need to blow your whistle while a player is generously dropping the ball on the 1-yard line!

In a head-exploding repeat of Hochuli's Sunday mistake, the officials in the Cowboys-Eagles game committed PBW on DeSean Jackson's brain-lock, saving Jackson from himself, preventing a Cowboys' recovery and essentially awarding the Eagles a touchdown.

Can't wait to see what the NFL officials haven't learned this week.

Something from Joey

There aren't a lot of guys who could talk smack after getting absolutely smoked by the Arizona Cardinals. But coming off a game the Cards could have won 50-0 had they not called off the dogs and benched their starters, Dolphins linebacker Joey Porter decided it was time to weigh in on Matt Cassel and suggest Miami might have an easy go of it in Foxborough.

"I just know he's not a Tom Brady. So if it's not Tom Brady, it shouldn't be that hard," said Porter.

Keep in mind that Cassel is 2-0 this season and Porter is 1-17 in his last 18 games. And that in Miami's two losses, the opposing quarterbacks were a combined 75 years in age and posted a combined 147.1 QB rating.

Porter can still run his mouth, but that's about the only part of his game that grabs your attention.

That's Tarvaris, Two R's and Zero W's

Was Brad Childress the only person in America with even so much as a passing interest in football who didn't understand there was a very good chance Tarvaris Jackson would not be the answer at QB?

Benching Jackson is the right move. But handing him the reins in the preseason and saying this is your team without a contingency plan (Chris Simms?) was the wrong move. I don't know what Childress was basing this confidence on, but the fact that they now have to turn to 37-year-old Gus Frerotte tells me the Vikings coach, an alleged QB guru, wasn't prepared for a situation that a lot of fans saw coming. Frerotte may be an improvement on Tarvaris, but he's not going to make anybody stop putting eight or nine in the box against Adrian Peterson.

The Vikings would be 2-0 with even mediocre quarterback play. And let's face it, mediocre is probably Gus Frerotte's ceiling at this point.

APB for WRs (DUIs OK)

Is there something in the water in Seattle? Is this Frances Farmer's revenge that Kurt Cobain warned us about?

After losing Deion Branch, Bobby Engram and Ben Obomanu to injury before the season started, the Seahawks lost Nate Burleson in Week 1 and Seneca Wallace and Logan Payne in Week 2.

Enter Keary Colbert and Koren Robinson, Nos. 7 and 8 on your Seattle wide receiver depth chart. Colbert got buried in Denver behind Brandon Marshall, Brandon Stokley, rookie Eddie Royal and former Seahawk Darrell Jackson. But he was still upright, and this season in Seattle, that'll do.

As for Robinson, he returns to the city where he created huge expectations with a monster 2002 season in his second year in the league and then never lived up to them. Given the dire straights of the Seahawks' receiving corps, perhaps this can count as part of Robinson's community service for the several DUIs he's accumulated while flushing his promise down the drain.

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