At one point in time, The Oakland Raiders were an awfully good Football team. Current CBS analyst Rich Gannon was the team’s quarterback then, and they even made it to a Super Bowl. I know it’s hard to believe. Well, fast forward to today. The Raiders are dreadful, and Rich Gannon hasn’t held back his feelings when it comes to his former team. Which is why….they’ve banned him. Via the San Francisco Gate….

“Rich Gannon is not welcome here,” Raiders executive John Herrera said Friday when asked about the ban. “We told CBS we did not want him in our building, we did not want him to be part of our production meeting, and that’s where it sits.”

The Raiders also asked CBS to remove Gannon from Sunday’s broadcast crew but the network declined. The team had previously asked CBS to remove Gannon from working their Nov. 30 game against the Chiefs last season to no avail.

“He’s attacked us on a regular basis since becoming a member of the media,” Herrera said. “After affording him the opportunity to establish a career here, he has since gone on to attack us in a way that’s totally unacceptable.”

Herrera quoted Gannon as saying in several interviews they should just “blow up the building and start over” in Oakland. Team officials took that as literally as they did figuratively, and told Gannon as much before last season’s home game against the Chiefs.

“We think in a post 9/11 world, that’s not a very proper thing to say,” Herrera said. “It’s uncalled for. He seems to be a guy who can’t get over the fact that he played the worst Super Bowl game in the history of the game and he wants to blame everybody but himself.

“I guess it’s our fault he threw five interceptions.”

Good lord this team is petty. How team’s think they can operate like this, and succeed, is completely beyond me. Kudos for Gannon to speak the truth, and that he’s not letting this nonsense affect his work.

Gannon not welcome in Alameda (SF Gate)

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