Jackson speaks to NFL, does not expect to be fined

ALAMEDA -- Raiders coach Hue Jackson was coolly measured and calculated on Sunday when he offered his take on the officiating in Oakland's 27-21 defeat of Minnesota, saying things were, well, unfair.Monday, in his weekly media conference, he was asked if he thought he might be getting fined by the NFL for his postgame comments?"Me? Me, expecting to get a fine? Are you kidding me?" an incredulous Jackson said. "For what?"

Well, if, New York Jets coach Rex Ryan was just fined 75,000 for cursing at a fan, you might think Jackson would be in line to open up his personal checkbook for going after the NFL's holy cows in the refs, right?"I just said what I felt," Jackson said. "I didn't criticize an individual call or anything like that. I just said what I felt. I would do that for my football team. Like I said, I'm going to protect my team. I don't expect any (fine) is going to become of it. I think what needed to be said was said, and we move forward."An email to the league seeking comment had not been immediately replied to Monday afternoon.But Jackson insisted he had already had his seeming day in court with the league earlier this morning, even if he would not say with whom he spoke."I've had some dialogue," Jackson said, "and I feel very comfortable at it, and where it is now. And we'll move forward from it. I wanted to have an opportunity to say what I felt, and I didjust as the league always does, they'll do what they need to do, and we'll move on from there."Just know that I have talked to the powers that be. We had a great conversation and we'll move on."The Raiders lead the NFL with 103 penalties for 892 yards. They are on pace to set new records with 165 penalties for 1,427 yards. The current single-season mark is 158 penalties and 1,304 yards, both set by the 1998 Kansas City Chiefs.Meanwhile, Oakland's single-season mark for penalties is the 156 it committed in both 1994, while in Los Angeles, and 1996, while the 1,276 penalty yards the Raiders had last season set the franchise mark.Jackson was asked if the Raiders have to be that much better to overcome the waves of yellow flags thrown their way."I'm not going to say that," Jackson said. "As I told you guys before when this all started, I'm not going to complain about the penalties. And obviously after yesterday I've probably reached my boiling point. I think the league does a great job."Nobody's perfect, and I respect that and understand that. All I ask is that when people deal with our football team, with the Raiders, that it's done fairly. Now across the league everyone says everything is fair, and I'm not saying that its not. But yesterday it was one game that I felt very uncomfortable with what had happened."I'm going to move on from that because that does me no good, our football team no good. What we got to do is, still, we have a problem that we need to correct, also. At the end of the day, we still need to get better at doing what we do, but on top of that I just want to make sure that just because we do need to get better in some areas, people aren't saying, 'O.K., let's have a great day throwing this flag today because there's the Raiders out here.' I think it's been addressed and we'll go forward."