John Rieger-US PRESSWIRE

Dennis Allen isn’t new to the AFC West so he’s familiar with the traditional rivalries. Of course now that he’s moved from the dregs of Denver to the home of football’s most faithful fans that is Oakland Coach Allen is getting a whole new perspective on pro football’s most storied rivalries. And if he wasn’t aware of how fierce Chiefs-Raiders can get then he got his first taste today.

Today Kansas City pass rusher Tamba Hali fired the first shot of this Sunday’s Chiefs-Raiders clash by calling the Silver and Black “dirty”.

“The Raiders, they come in, they cheap shot, they hit you. I’m not saying names. It is what it is. We’ve got to be ready to play and keep our composure, stay poised and be able to get this win. They’re a good team and a fast team and they play dirty. We’ve got to come out swinging. We’ve got to be ready for that.”

Whatever “dirty” means exactly Hali didn’t go into detail. Did he mean cats like Tommy Kelly or Rolando McClain are from the Dirty South? Did he mean dirty in that so good they’re filthy kind of way?  But that’s irrelevant. There is no way you can spin “dirty” in a positive way or even explain it in anything that resembles something less menacing than intentionally trying to injure or cheat in some way.

In reality the first Chief to take a shot at the Raiders this year was none other than Kevin Boss who was quickly castoff by Reggie McKenize. Boss wasted no time in trying to fire up Raider Nation by proclaiming himself to be “on the right side of the rivalry”. For the record Boss is out for the season and fellow former Raider Stanford Routt hasn’t exactly find greener pastures in Missouri.

Thankfully none of the Raiders, including Coach Allen, are taking the bait. Whatever Hali was hoping to accomplish I’m guessing he hasn’t gotten the desired result. The only result Raider Nation cares about is winning. So come Sunday there will be plenty of dirty fingers pointed at the scoreboard reminding Hali what time it really is.

Denny Medley-US PRESSWIRE

Any and every member of Raider Nation has experienced it. Some fan of one of our rivals gets all in your face during the offseason about some mundane move their franchise has made reminding you of why their organization is run so much better than Oakland.

Heard it when San Diego took Norv Turner off of Oakland’s scrap heap. Heard a lot of the same smack all over again when Denver hired Josh McDaniels. And there was no end in sight for all the rhetoric Chiefs fans were spewing when Scott Pioli took over and brought Matt Cassel with him from New England.

In each instance I just laughed at all the hype. Some fans get too caught up in offseason nonsense while others are just looking for any excuse to downgrade the Raiders by propping up their team.

I get it…kind of.

You see for me I’ve always put my faith in what we see on the field. Anybody that talks up offseason trades, drafts and signings in the NFL has clearly never watched the NFL.

None of that crap matters until we see a full body of work.

Which brings me to the point of this whole I-told-ya-so rant I’m on.

The Matt Cassel era is pretty much over in Kansas City. In the week leading up to the next installment of Raiders-Chiefs Romeo Crennel has made it official by announcing Brady Quinn as his starter…on Monday.

No need to wait and see if Cassel is good to go after suffering a concussion two weeks previous. No need to take a look at his performance in practice. Crennel has seen all he needs of Cassel and Quinn’s two-INT performance in his first start was apparently good enough that the Chiefs will in all likelihood sever all ties with Cassel come the conclusion of the season.

So where is all that Arrowhead arrogance about how Pioli was going to bring his winning ways to the Chiefs? What happened to all the talk of Cassel being the best QB the franchise has seen since…I don’t know…Trent Green? Steve Bono? Elvis Grbac? Rich Gannon even? Steve DeBerg anybody? I can keep going if you’d like…Dave Krieg? Todd freaking Blackledge???

Far be it for me as a Raider fan to talk too much smack about a quarterback carousel though.  Al Davis knows we’ve had more spins on that ride than the Kardashian family has had trips to the clinic because of a burning sensation. Difference being that I didn’t go heckle some Chiefs fans when the Raiders signed Kerry Collins.  Or go brag about how Reggie McKenzie was going to build a dynasty. Nope, I just gave my opinion on the matter always deferring to the obligatory “let’s wait and see how this plays out” line when it came time to conclude any futures conversations.

So the next time some fan of an AFC West rival gives you the offseason business just say one word…Cassel. That experiment ended worse than…well…McDaniels in Denver or Turner in SD.

Thanks for the fun times though, you Chief fans who insisted my team was going to suck in five years while yours was on its way to dynasty land. What you fools didn’t realize is Pioli said two words not one when he was hired. You heard dynasty. What he really said was die nasty.

Boss was barely in Oakland long enough to know which stop on the BART takes you directly into the Coliseum on Sundays and he hasn’t even been in Kansas City long enough to know what a Chiefs’ tailgate is like. Yet somehow he knows he’s on the better end of the Raiders-Chiefs rivalry and said so in an interview.

“I was in Oakland for such a short period of time that it wasn’t really something where I really understood the whole Chiefs-Raiders rivalry. I just know now that I’m on the better side of the rivalry. It’s been a great transition and it’s really been a blessing in disguise to have been moved on to greener pastures.”

So…let me get this straight. Dude knew nothing of the Raiders-Chiefs rivalry before becoming a Raider? Never mind that this cat grew up playing football on the West Coast. You’d assume at some point he would have seen or a Raiders-Chiefs game in his lifetime. Never mind that he hasn’t even played a game as a Chief yet. Somehow he already knows he’s on the “better side”.

For the record, Boss is likely going to be a blocking tight end in KC and nothing more. The Raiders gave him a chance to feature prominently in an offense that typically utilized the tight end position in a multitude of ways. He had his health issues but overall didn’t contribute much more than throwing a few big blocks and coming up with a couple of nice moments on special teams.

So now the backup tight end in Kanas City wants to run his mouth.

You’ve been warned, Boss. You know Raider Nation is loyal to a fault but all bets are off when you put on those enemy colors and call out the best fans in football. I’d say we’ll see you in the fall but nothing guarantees Boss will be either healthy enough to play or that he’ll get on the field for anything other than running downs.