Can’t You Guys Ever Rip Raider Coaches?

When the Raiders were beaten by San Francisco and Seattle, The Times’ sportswriters placed the entire responsibility on the players. Never will any of your writers criticize the coaching staff. Not once last year did reporters for Raider games place any responsibility on Art Shell and his coaching staff.

The reason is clear: Your writers fear what Raider management will do to their player access. The Raiders have made it clear, they will tolerate criticism of players, but never the coaches, and Times writers adhere to this policy. How can we know that you are our trusted agents at the battle front who won’t automatically place the responsibility for a loss on the soldiers rather than on the generals?

ROBERT W. GREER

Los Angeles