Aqib Talib, Michael Crabtree got ejected after brawling (Video)
By Josh Hill
Aqib Talib and Michael Crabtree wasted no time in getting kicked out of Sunday’s game for fighting each other.
There was no real reason to watch the Broncos-Raiders game on Sunday. Both teams are pretty much cooked and the playoffs are slipping out of their grasp.
Leave it to Aqib Talib and Michael Crabtree to give us a reason to be upset we flipped the channel. Within the first minutes of the game, both players were ejected for fighting each other. Gabe Jackson was also kicked out.
It wasn’t even subtle and there didn’t really seem to be a good reason for the fight outside of the fact that neither particularly likes the other.
No one should be shocked by this. There’s no love lost between the Broncos and Raiders, and no two players have bought into that mantra over the last few years more than Crabtree and Talib.
No one is endorsing the fighting, but it’s a perfect metaphor for the aggression and frustration that two teams that were supposed to be better than this are feeling. Oakland has an outside chance at the playoffs thanks to the Chiefs falling off a cliff, but they’re hardly the Super Bowl contender many pegged them to be.
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All of this was pretty indicative of the current state of both teams. Sunday’s game saw two new coordinators on either side of the ball for Denver and Oakland. Mike McCoy was fired as the Broncos offensive coordinator while the Raiders fired Ken Norton as defensive coordinator. That’s just the tip of the iceberg too, as there will be more coaching changes on both sidelines before next season starts.
Also, I’ll never for the life of me understand why someone would ever take a swing at a person wearing a helmet. Say what you will about the safety of helmets in live action, they do a helluva job stopping a haymaker.