This week in “Dave plays catch up to old news that he didn’t hit when it was hot”, we have Marquette King of the Raiders surprisingly getting cut. It was a move that I think few saw coming, even Raiders fans who seemed to be aware of the conflicts in the locker room.

Main reason this came as a surprise: King is a very good punter. One of the better punters. Notably, he’s also the fun punter. He has a good twitter account and does silly dances when he does a good punt. While he wasn’t the cheapest of punters, it isn’t like punters are terribly expensive. The Raiders also didn’t really have a 2 punter controversy, like what happened to Chris Kluwe in Minnesota when the Vikings drafted a new, younger, sexier, cheaper, and less memelord punter. Why jettison a cheap position that helps a team?

Maybe because we actually have our first case of…diva punter?

I lurked a lot of Raiders communities when this happened because I don’t follow them too closely and the general consensus seemed to be that the locker room got sick of King. Keep in mind this was post-release, so Raiders fans were likely in full “He was never worth it” rationalization mode (which happens with every fanbase making a surprising cut). But King’s antics had resulted in a few penalties that hurt the team and one particular incident with noted buttmunch Aqib Talib seemed to cause a rift in the locker room.

Self-inflicted gunshot wound turd consumer Aqib Talib ripped off Crabtree’s chain and then at the Pro Bowl King took a goofy photo with Talib with Talib playfully pretending to yank his lanyard off. I thought the photo was harmless fun. Apparently the Raiders locker room felt differently and some players (Bruce Irvin especially) took great offense to this slight. King started to be seen as selfish and all about that social media charm instead of THE TEAM. I think it’s an over-reaction to some harmless fun but I’m not a hyper competitive football player in a tight locker room culture so I’m not really any authority here. If the Raiders felt slighted that badly then King probably should have known how his photo would be received.

Anyway Jon Gruden the coach hates fun so he’s a Bronco now. We get to look forward to the…Punter revenge game? That’ll be new.