Oakland Raiders safety Gibril Wilson gave his thoughts today regarding the recent happenings for the Silver & Black. Here are some highlights from his press session:
On DeAngelo Hall being a scapegoat:
I think a lot of what happened to D wasn’t his fault. D is a playmaker out there. He’s a good football player. I don’t know if he’s being made a scapegoat or whatever but I know DeAngelo Hall is a good football player. That’s all I know.
Whether teammates are playing on their heels, wondering if they are next:
Me personally I’m not really worried about that. I know what I can do and my coach knows what I can do. Whatever else happens upstairs or wherever it happens, that’s in its own. I’m not worried about making mistakes out there.
That’s definitely not healthy. It makes you play tentative a little bit and that’s not good. That’s not good, where you always have somebody coming down on you that might not really know what the situation is. So that’s definitely not healthy for anybody to go out there and do that.
Initial reaction after hearing the news about Hall:
I was very shocked. I talked to D last night and me and him have the same agent. I thought it was actually going to be me or him. It’s him and it’s just a messed up situation. I don’t know what else more to say. D was a good football player and we needed him. It’s kind of disappointing that we still have eight games to go and we got rid of one of the best corners.
Comparing Oakland to the New York Giants:
This is a soap opera over here, man. If this was New York there would have been about 50 media people around here. This is a soap opera. I just think we need to settle on something. We need to have a vision of where we’re trying to take this team. If you don’t have a vision and you’re just trying to plug in players, then you’re always going to get the same results. We’re not about losing. This is the first team that I’ve been in a situation like this ever since I been playing football. We gotta win. That’s all I’m worried about, getting a win. I’m getting phone calls from friends asking me what’s going on and all that stuff. Right now, to be honest, football’s not even really fun just because of all the losing and stuff. Coming to work is kind of hard. Now dealing with D getting cut and all that stuff…
One thing is losing and another is dealing with all the extra stuff. We have so much on our plate already. To deal with the extra stuff is not healthy for anybody, especially when you’re trying to get a game plan in and you’re trying to know what you’re supposed to do and all that. It’s not a healthy situation at all.
Aftermath of Hall’s cut:
I’ve never been in a situation where you cut one of the best players. That’s strange to me. It’s almost like we’re throwing in the towel. We have eight games to go and we’re two games down in the division. All we need to do is get on a roll in November and the next thing you know we’re right back in this thing. For me, the sense I got was we’re kind of throwing in the towel. There’s still eight games left. You never know what could happen.
Direction and goal:
No. The direction of the franchise should be championship. I mean that’s common knowledge. We ain’t up in here just to collect a check. I would hope everybody’s vision is to get a championship. Not anything else but to get a championship. I’m assuming (laughter) that their thing is championship.
