Former Raiders' defender Warren Sapp believes that the team will improve if owner Al Davis simply goes away. "Nobody tells you how bad it is," Sapp said on Showtime's Inside the NFL. " ... any person that calls me on the telephone, [I tell them] do not go anywhere near Oakland." Sapp believes that Lane Kiffin, fired this week by Davis, never got a fair chance in Oakland. "He came in there with a change of mentality. The whole system," Sapp said. "He changed how the locker room looked because it was going to take that kind of overhaul for Oakland to become the proud franchise we all knew it was." In Sapp's mind, Davis in the common denominator in Oakland's struggles. "[Davis] is the common equation," Sapp added. "You take him out, put him at home watching film or whatever he is doing -- you have a functioning football organization. But once he comes over the top, he goes and starts moving it around. "Al Davis knows football -- it's just '60s and '70s football. That's what it is. He's thinking that Cliff Branch is outside and [Jim] Plunkett is dropping back and you can throw it 80 yards down the field -- deep ball, deep ball, deep ball."