Raiders Set To Jettison DeAngelo Hall

The Oakland Raiders came to the realization that the DeAngelo Hall experiment has not worked. This decision proves that the team made a mistake in signing him in the off-season and basically squandering a second round draft pick in the process.

Hall will have made $8 million so far this season; the team has chosen not to compound the problem by guaranteeing his $16 million salary. The Raiders now know why the Falcons put him on the trade block.

He will be waived on 11/5/2008 Per Adam Schefter of NFL Network, ending the nightmare that was DeAngelo Hall in silver and black. It was reported that personnel changes would be made and now it is known what one of those changes are.

It has been proven, without a doubt, that solid bump-and-run coverage wasn’t his strong suit. He has been beaten repeatedly from day one when he was misused by Bronco’s rookie Eddie Royal.

Bills, Chargers, Saints, Ravens receivers followed suit and proceeded to do the same. The Falcons couldn’t wait to do the same and proved it early last Sunday going right after him in a game that was over at half time.

I'm guessing that having your former teammates over for dinner on the friday before the game will not deter them from embarassing you on sunday.

I'm also guessing that the best CB tandem in the league project is now over seeing as a bigger Stanford Routt is a better fit.

The team has decided to cut their losses and play without a player that was a huge weakness on defense. The injury he has could explain some of the issues he was having but clearly not all of them.

I didn’t expect the end to come so soon for Hall but he has been awful, just as bad as Javon Walker perhaps he could be receiving his walking papers as well.

This will definitely free up money this off-season so Nnamdi Asomugha will be signed to a long term contract that he deserves.

The bad news is that the team chose not to do the same and release some other players but I have a feeling that DeAngelo Hall will not be the last player released. There is an apparent roster overhaul taking place.

Could it be that Al Davis is seeing the error of his ways and that some of the things he has done aren’t working? Could he finally ready to address weaknesses on the team and stop just throwing money at the problem? Time will tell.

Could this be Al Davis way of having a roster purge, similar to someone purging the unneeded files on a computer? If that is the case, and is what is truly going on in Oakland, then Hall is the first and not the last to be shown the exit.

The money that has been freed up can be used to improve the team by brining in players that can actually improve the team. It even has the feeling that a real NFL General Manager looked at the roster and stated that you need to cut ties with this group of players. Stay tuned apparently there is more to follow.

This move and others to save money on one hand could work out for the team in the long run but on the other it also shows the top down dysfunction of this team and more bizzare actions.

This team needs to finally hire a true front office and hire people for the following positions immediately; those positions are General Manager, President, Vice President, Director of Player Personnel, Assistant Director of Player Personnel, Director of Pro Personnel and a Director of College Scouting.

After that is accomplished this group needs to work on establishing an identity for this team offensively, that identity needs to start with a running game and work toward a balance offense. Defensively this group needs to establish and identity that this team will not be run on.