CohnZohn

In this blog I have been hard on Michael Vick and Larry Johnson. I wrote that Vick should be banned from the NFL. I suggested Johnson should get fined and suspended.

Some Zohn readers commented today on my apparent lack of balance. If I want Vick banned why not Johnson as well? A group in KC wants Johnson banned because of his anti-gay remarks.

I won't get into Vick again -- my thoughts have been well-documented. But why would I go easier on Johnson than Vick and why don't I want the people in KC to ruin his career?

Maybe I am being inconsistent but I'll try to explain. Vick killed dogs, killed them over a period of years. He also broke the law.

Johnson made a few nasty and insensitive remarks. I don't think killing and talking, in this case, are the same. Johnson did not break the law and I think Johnson can learn from what he did. I also think he's paying the price right now with a suspension and a fine. With Vick I think he paid a price but I don't think he deserves to be in the league. Frankly I don't care what happens to him. I think Johnson deserves a second chance -- especially if Vick got one.

So that's my best explanation of how I feel.

Here is Ira Miller on the 49ers as they approach this weekend:

Cohn: How did Alex Smith do against the Colts?

Miller: He did OK, considering. I did not expect the game to be competitive the way it was. The defense kept them in the game. The next 2 weeks will be interesting. These are 2 games at home against 2 not very good teams, Tennessee and Chicago. They have bad defenses.

Cohn: Is there a chance the 49ers will do well?

Miller: Yeah, if they're going to show something it would certainly be against these teams at home.

Cohn: Is Singletary showing himself to be adaptable?

Miller: He changed quarterbacks but he hasn't changed his basic philosophy. He's shown he's adaptable to some degree; he's not totally inflexible. At some point he must think about his overall direction. You can't win a championship in the NFL just running the ball. I think he knows that and that's why he's not happy with his quarterback situation. His 2 best games were games they lost, Minnesota and Indianapolis. It shows they are clearly better than I thought they would be and they have reached the big middle rank of mediocrity.

Cohn: Where were they before?

Miller: Down there not far away from the Raiders. They were mixed up because of coaching and their quarterbacks and they weren't very good. Now they have discipline and you can draw a direct straight line between Mike Singletary becoming the coach and Vernon Davis becoming a player.

Cohn: Is the 3-game losing streak they're on serious or standard growing pains?

Miller: It's a sign of a team making slight improvement. Certainly from game 1 to 2 to 3 of the losing streak they have improved. They've lost 4 games, 3 of them to teams very clearly better than they are. One of their problems is quarterback matchup. They almost always have the 2nd best starting quarterback. This week they may not. I don't know where Vince Young is now.

Cohn: How will they do against Tennessee?

Miller: I think they will beat Tennessee. Their defense is good enough to keep an eye on Vince Young. They must stop the run but they have done a good job at stopping the run. They have held opponents to under 3.8 yards per carry for almost year.

Some KC fans wrote and signed a petition demanding the Chiefs further punish Larry Johnson. He's already been suspended through Nov. 8 and fined and now the fans want him kept out of games so he doesn't pass Priest Holmes as the all-time Chiefs ground gainer.

Come on. Enough already. I criticized Johnson for his anti-gay remarks but no one should want to ruin this guy. He's doing his time, as it were. Maybe he can learn from what he did. But at a certain point you've got to let him play and not treat him like the worst man in the world.

Chiefs fans should understand that. Plus the job of the Chiefs is to win games and so far they're not very good at that.

I caught up with Ira Miller this morning. He and his wife Sharon were driving from their home near Chicago to Penn State for the weekend. Ira is a loyal Penn State alum. He's going to State College for a football game and to see some students he mentors in journalism. Here's our chat about the Raiders. The Niners will come later.

Cohn: Your reaction to the latest allegations against Tom Cable?

Miller: We really don't have the first clue what it's all about. The most interesting thing is the idiotic response by the Raiders about we've dismissed employees before.

Here is the Raiders statement: "There have been occasions on which we have dismissed Raider employees for having engaged in inappropriate conduct. For reasons of privacy, we kept the basis for those dismissals confidential. We endured public opprobrium for the dismissals, all the while knowing our basis for them was appropriate."

Back to Ira: Why drag this stuff into it? And then the other idiotic thing about ESPN.

Here is the Raiders statement re: ESPN: "ESPN's role in this matter must be carefully examined. ESPN routinely disseminates falsehoods about the Raiders. During the last year, ESPN (working with someone who was in this organization) engaged in a calculated effort to distort the truth about the Raiders, utilizing lies and innuendo."

Back to Ira: If you're the Raiders why not try to put a football team together. You stink. You're in the 7^th year of the worst stretch in NFL history. Are you waiting for a government bailout or what? You can't make up this stuff. What goes on with these people is unbelievable.

Cohn: What should the Raiders do about Cable?

Miller: The league should try to find out what really went on, too. As far as the Raiders go, I assume where they're concerned anything that makes sense they will do the opposite. You can't take them seriously. Any facet of that operation strains the bounds of belief. I do not think Cable is a good coach but we all know where the problem starts with the Raiders. I do not understand the motivation of people who still buy tickets to their games. It's like, "We've got to go back to this restaurant because the food is so bad I want to see if it's still bad."

Cohn: Are the Raiders a story as a football team or only as a soap opera?

Miller: If they were a soap opera it probably would be canceled.

On Monday there was a national conference call with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Johnson and Bird were on the phone at two different locations and they spoke to dozens of writers from all over the country.

They were promoting a book they co-wrote with Jackie MacMullan, "When the Game Was Ours." I participated in the call because I wanted to hear Bird and Johnson after all these years. I thought I might get a column out of it. I didn't, but one thing stayed with me.

It's how Johnson acted. He joined the call before Bird and waited with the rest of us for Bird. It's not that Bird was late. It's that Johnson was early. When we got talking it was clear how much admiration and affection these two great players have for each other. Many times Johnson would praise Bird and sometimes he would defer answering a question and say, "Larry, why don't you go first?"

Finally, after an hour Magic said two more questions and he had to go. In other words although there was a moderator he had, very politely, taken over the call. Here's what I think. Magic is still a point guard, the best ever. He distributed the questions, involved his teammate Bird and ended the call when appropriate. He was very impressive and it was a pleasure to hear both of them speak.

I ask the question: How nuts are the Raiders?

Before answering I need to explain something. On Monday I went to Tom Cable's presser, drove home and wrote my column firing the crummy coach. Around 4 in the afternoon the Raiders sent out two press releases via email, one concerning Cable's alleged hitting of women and another about ESPN. My column did not reflect those releases because I never got them. I never get any press releases from the Raiders because I have been stricken from their email list.

I take this as a mark of great achievement on my part. The Raiders apparently treat me as a non-human, non-journalist because I have gotten under their skin. When a team is that bad, when ownership is that paranoid a journalist should get under their skin. To my knowledge only 2 other columnists share this honor with me -- Monte Poole and Tim Kawakami. If I'm leaving anyone out I apologize.

So anyway I never got the emails until Monday evening when my colleague Phil Barber sent them to me. Now I want to comment on press release No. 2, regarding ESPN.

Here it is: ESPN's role in this matter must be carefully examined. ESPN routinely disseminates falsehoods about the Raiders. During the last year, ESPN (working with someone who was in this organization) engaged in a calculated effort to distort the truth about the Raiders, utilizinng lies and innuendo.

OK, that's the statement I didn't get. Here's what I have to say. Holy, cow! Is that nuts or what? Did ESPN disseminate falsehoods in Cable's case or engage in innuendo? It presented two women who spoke on camera about Cable hitting them. That's not innuendo. That's accusation.

These women may be lying, but it's not wrong for ESPN to interview them. And we must point out that Cable, who may be innocent of all charges, now has 4 people who claimed he hurt them physically.

The Raiders say they will investigate Cable. Good. But for them to blame ESPN for Cable's problems is off the chart whacko even for them.

At today's presser someone asked Tom Cable about having an anger management problem. He said he'd refer questions like that to the statement he issued -- he didn't punch his first wife, he had said; he slapped her after he found out she committed adultery. The first wife says she didn't commit adultery and said he did hit her.

It was the right question for the reporter to ask and although he maneuvered out of the situation, Cable never answered the question. You wonder if he has an anger management issue. You wonder if the Raiders are investigating him or if the league is. If they aren't they should be.

Do you think he has a problem controlling his rage? To read my column on Tom Cable click here.

Al Davis should fire Tom Cable. The Raiders are entering a bye week and this is a good time to get rid of him.

Of course, in the big picture, the Raiders' misery is not strictly Cable's fault. It's Davis'. Still, 2-6 at the bye stinks and coaches with records like that need to go. All this negative publicity Cable is bringing the team with his personal life doesn't help.

Davis has a choice with Cable. Fire him now or wait until the end of the season. It's a crummy choice, but that's how it goes. I say fire him now.

I wonder about Tom Cable. He got off in Napa County for slugging Randy Hanson, but that whole thing seems fishy. A guy walks into a room without a broken jaw and then walks out with one and no one saw Cable slug him. Huh?

Now an ex-wife and an ex-girlfriend say he slugged them too. Another ex-wife who's getting alimony from him says he never slugged her. But before that she alleged he physically abused her but then she retracted.

There's the saying where there's smoke there's fire. In terms of Cable, is there smoke?