The Raiders Still Waiting For Their First Break

I’m going to be a very honest fan. The Raiders should be 0-4. They played well enough to beat the Chargers, but couldn’t make plays down the stretch. The Chiefs outplayed the Raiders, but also made key mistakes which cost them the game. The Broncos and Texans games—I would rather not even acknowledge.

With that in mind, I am not here to trash my team. I’ll leave that to those who live to do so.

This team is bad right now, but they’re bad enough on their own. They do not need to catch the a$$ end of every call for thr rest of the season.

I never questioned about the Murphy “incompletion” in week one until I watched officials uphold two much more debatable calls the following week. In fact, the league—realizing the credibility of grumbling fans across the country—actually issued a statement to clarify the integrity of all three rulings.

Until the time of the statement, I had spent very little time concerning myself with the plays in question. After reading the NFL’s explanation of the calls, I began to wonder if the league had any idea what the rule actually says. It’s more confusing than ever. I’m watching replays and am lost as to what is and is not a catch.

It’s annoying, but as a Raider fan, I’ve watched the league wipe the dust off never-before-heard-of rules, to shatter my dreams.

Then came the Houston game. I watched Jamarcus Russell get face planted into the ground without penalty and Tom Brady awarded a 15-yard penalty after nearly being grazed by Terrell Suggs.

In the same game, I watched Louis Murphy haul in a great catch along the sideline, which was ruled a catch on the field. After 15 seconds passed the officials convened and found a way to override the official closest to the play.

The Raiders challenged and the replay showed more than enough perspective to make the correct call. No bobble. One foot in and the other foot dragged on the green for at least 12 inches.

Incomplete. No explanation except that the ruling on the field was confirmed.

They could say he bobbled the ball or didn’t get both feet in bounds, but neither were true, so they kept it short and sweet.

The Raiders don’t need any help losing games right now. We can lose just fine on our own.

I can watch my team get pummelled for four quarters and leave the television on. I’ve done it for six years.

It we are going to go under one game at a time, the league could at least let us come up for air once in a while.

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Richard Seymour: Playing Stubborn With Al Davis?

According to ProFootballTalk.com, the Raiders have sent a letter to Richard Seymour giving him five days to report and take a physical. If Seymour does not cooperate, the Raiders have the option of suspending him for the season.

This is the least desirable scenario for both Seymour and the Raiders.

If Seymour decides to dig in and refuse to show, he runs the risk of never signing the lucrative contract he has been looking for. He would remain on the Raiders roster through 2010 at his 2009 salary, but could not play for any team in 2009.

It appears this letter also informs Seymour that Oakland is not interested in New England returning their draft pick in 2011.

This may be a wise decision on the part of Al Davis. The Broncos and Chiefs are both in need of a 3-4 defensive end. They would certainly be at the front of the line to trade with New England if this deal were to fall through.

It appears the Raiders will own Seymour for the remainder of his career or no one will.

He has no choice but to report to Oakland within the next five days. Sitting out two seasons is hardly an option.

The real question is: What will his attitude be like once he is in Oakland?

He could be franchised after this season in any scenario meaning the Raiders could keep him from free agency until he is 31.

The wise move will be for Richard Seymour to be a professional and show up in Oakland, sign a contract, and finish his career in Oakland.

That’s what the Raiders want. That’s what Al Davis wants.

And that’s what they will get. Eventually.

In the meantime, what does this mean for Raider Nation?

It sucks.

 

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Despite What You’re Told, the Oakland Raiders Will “Seymour” Wins in 2009

Why can’t anyone give the Oakland Raiders credit?

Is there a clause in every ESPN contract that discourages any positive Oakland Raiders’ coverage?

Within hours of the trade, Adam Shefter spewed texts from unnamed sources, within the league, who blasted the Raiders for making the move.

The trade is written off as one that will give the Raiders a couple of extra wins at best, but it won’t put them into contention.

Well here’s my contention; the Raiders want to improve.

They addressed the area of greatest need in their lineup, they have youth at every skill position, and sufficient talent to make a playoff run.

I have suggested for months that Oakland has two prominent issues that will keep them from having a breakthrough season. They can’t stop the run and have little leadership on either side of the ball.

They have addressed most of their issues with this trade. They lose one player in 2011. That will not set back the franchise. The Raiders have drafted better on the second day of the draft than most “educated” NFL minds are willing to admit.

If Oakland is bad in 2010, they will lose a top 10 pick in 2011. They will still pick in the top 40 that year and already own additional picks next season.

The Raiders may not win the Super Bowl, but remember, 8-8 won the division last season. Raiders fans want to watch meaningful games in December and this trade gives them the opportunity.

We’ve haven’t had the opportunity to see the Raiders field a defense in the fourth quarter that wasn’t exhausted from being pounded on the ground for three-straight quarters.

Is it possible that a fresh secondary and D-Line may actually be able to hold a lead down the stretch? Remember, one receiver will be eliminated from every play even before the snap.

With the logistics of the trade already under scrutiny, the media has now reported that Richard Seymour may not report to Oakland.

This is not a concern of mine.

Of course, Seymour is disappointed to leave the team he has played for his entire life. Of course, it’s fun playing in Foxboro Stadium, and contending for the Super Bowl every year of his career. Why would he want to move his family to California by Monday morning?

I don’t care that Rodney Harrison has told reporters he doesn’t know if Seymour will actually report to Oakland. Everyone knows where Harrison made his money and why he hates the Raiders.

I believe Seymour will show in Oakland in the next 36 hours.

I have no problem with Seymour being unwilling to travel on a moment’s notice to the other side of the country. This trade is a lot to digest. If he needs a few days to refocus, this fan is willing to accept that.

If Richard Seymour comes to Oakland ready to play, he will make a difference.

At 29, Seymour has been in the league long enough that missing practice through Wednesday is not going to set him back on the field.

He doesn’t need to learn coverages or blitz packages. Remember, he played in New England, and already obtained Oakland’s signals years ago.

His job is to recognize and stop the run.

Last season, Seymour had eight sacks in 15 games, which is a lot of sacks for an end in the 3-4 defense.

If he stays healthy this season and Oakland’s offense can get on track, why can’t they win eight games this season?

And we all know what eight games may mean in the AFC West.

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What Scares Me Most About the 2009 Raiders

As usual, I have been a very optimistic Raiders fan during the past six months. I hated the Heyward-Bey pick when I heard it and rationalized it later. I’ll admit I wanted Michael Crabtree, so I’m certainly no genius.

I rationalized in my mind that the Raiders will run over top teams and take a load off Russell to allow him to do what he does best—throw deep.

The first pre-season game gave me something much better than I had expected. I watched Chaz Schillens look like a legitimate wide receiver stud. My only real concern appeared to have been solved.

JaMarcus Russell actually had someone to throw to. Realistically, I knew Heyward-Bey was not going to take the league by storm but I was and am confident he will be a valuable asset to this offense for a long time.

I assumed with able bodies and a new coaching scheme, the Raiders would not get gouged by the run.

In one week’s time I found myself overwhelmed with disappointment. Chaz Schillens’ injury is absolutely going to hurt. Unless the Javon Walker miracle is true, the Raiders will not start a proven wide receiver until Schillens recovers.

To make matters worse, the Raiders will have already played two division games by the time Schillens is in the lineup.

To make matters worse, the run defense appears to be worse than ever. The Raiders front seven did not attack a single San Francisco rush.

The linebackers hit their blockers as if they expected to be stood up. It looked like a group of guys who had somewhere else to be.

In fact, they probably did. I know it’s the pre-season so the intensity is not always there, but the Raiders need to prove to themselves they can stop the run.

Running backs tend to do well in preseason since the offensive line is usually more aggressive than the defensive front.

With that said, the game reminded me too much of last season. I was underwhelmed by the lack of pursuit from the Oakland defense.

From where I sit as a fan, it comes across as nothing so much as a lack of effort. This defense needs to dictate the game and not react to plays as they unfold.

I’ve never placed a lot of stock on the pre-season, but Oakland’s problems last year will not fix themselves. The personnel is very much the same as last season, which means we are expecting more from guys who underachieved in 2008.

From what I saw this last week, Tom Cable has some work to do. The Raiders do not have the leadership on the field at this point for him to sit back.

The coaches have preached fundamentals for three weeks. Going into the third week of preseason, it’s time for Cable to light a fire under these guys.

I’m holding out that the best is yet to come.

Why Donovan Will Never Nabb The McMonkey On His Back

From draft day to the present, Donovan McNabb’s career has never been far removed from controversy. NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue was barely a breath removed from announcing McNabb as the No. 2 overall pick before Eagles fans began scrutinizing him.

While the Eagles made the right choice, particularly in passing on Ricky Williams, Donovan McNabb is presumably in the final chapter of his career without delivering a championship to Philadelphia.

But is that the real reason Philadelphia hates to love Donovan McNabb?

Donovan McNabb does not have the lightning rod personality that we as fans love to hate. He is held in high regard by teammates and opponents.

Roger Goodell will never hand McNabb a fine for excessive celebration or being a menace to society.

He always says the right thing. He’s been to five NFC championships and a Super Bowl. He should be the perfect face of a franchise.

The problem with McNabb is he is too much of a nice guy.

Philadelphia does not want to get behind the nice guy. Even the mild-mannered Chase Utley gave Philly fans a bone at the All-Star game last year.

One “F— You, Cowboys” would go a long way.

Being a nice guy does not lose games.

Or does it?

Is it possible that Donovan McNabb doesn’t have the intestinal fortitude to handle pressure situations down the stretch? How many nice guys really finish first?

I’ve never met an Eagles fan that didn’t scoff at the notion of McNabb not making the Hall of Fame. In their defense, maybe he should make the Hall. He posts consistent stats nearly every healthy season.

But if McNabb is truly a great quarterback, shouldn’t he have won more than one big game?

In fact, even McNabb would have been hard-pressed to find a way to lose to the 2005 Falcons in the NFC Championship. Michael Vick led Atlanta into that game with a 73.1 rating and were never a match for the relentless Philadelphia defense.

The previous year against St. Louis, McNabb erased a first half lead by directing the Eagles to zero third quarter first downs. Down 29-24 with 2:20 on the clock and a timeout, McNabb and the Eagles began their final drive on their own 45 yard line.

It took McNabb exactly 25 seconds to throw an interception and allow St. Louis to run out the clock.

In the ’03 and ’04 NFC Championship games, the Eagles scored 13 points combined. In those games, McNabb threw no touchdowns and 4 interceptions.

This past year was the exception to McNabb’s playoff blunders, but in all the years that Jim Johnson’s defense led Philadelphia into the playoffs, shouldn’t he have more than one impressive game to hang his hat on?

He has the every physical ability a coach could ever want in a quarterback. In fact, he is the rare genetic machine that also has the ability to read and identify defenses as evidenced by his better than 2:1 touchdown to interception ratio.

So why is Donovan so bad when the game is on the line? 

He’s just too nice a guy.

That’s not exactly the reason, but it’s not far from it. How many times have you, as an Eagles fan, wanted to rip the smile off Donovan’s face after he throws a bad pass in a clutch situation?

Don’t say I’m wrong. Everyone watches Monday Night Football and everyone stayed up to watch the Eagles close out the Week 2 game in Dallas. How in the name of Via Sikahema is it funny to throw a ball at someone’s feet when the game is on the line?

Does Tiger Woods giggle as he lines up for a pressure putt in Augusta? Did Michael Jordan so much as crack a smile in his whole career?

Even Tom Brady, who has the prettiest smile in sports, somehow manages a game face and leaves his antics off the field.

Would Ray Lewis ever go to an opponent’s bench after a play and pretend to make a phone call?

While I like McNabb and love drafting him in my fantasy football league, I don’t believe he has the genetic composition to stand up to pressure. I suppose it can be learned, and hopefully for Philadelphia, last year was a sign of things to come.

I’ve heard it said that nice guys don’t get the girls. In this case, I guess nice guys don’t get the rings.

When McFadden, Bush, and Fargas Was Simply No. 34

If you became a Raiders fan in the late 1980s, he is probably the reason. If you began to hate the Raiders in the late 1980s, he is also probably the reason.

Like the Baby Boomer generation following World War II, there is a Bo Jackson generation of Oakland Raiders fans.

I am one of them.

My dad was somewhat of a Jets fan. His parents had rented a beach house to Mickey Shuler of the Jets for several years when I was young. If not for Mickey he probably would never have been a football fan at all.

I loved sports and as a five year-old kid my parents turned an Eagles’ Mike Quick jersey into a Shuler jersey. I wore holes through that jersey until I was nine.

It was at that age that I watched Bo Jackson for the first time. I haven’t cared about a Jets game since.

I was so young, but even a kid recognizes excitement. While the world was idolizing Michael Jordan, my room was covered with posters of Bo.

What I now realize about my childhood hero:

Bo Jackson was the most remarkable combination of size, power and speed I’ve ever seen. At 6’1″ and 230 pounds he was always the fastest man of the football field. To put his size into perspective, LenDale White is listed at 6’1″ and 235 pounds.

The players were likely more than five pounds apart in game weight, but the fact remains the same. Bo Jackson had more speed than anyone his size in the history of the NFL.

In fact, it has been disputed that Bo Jackson ran the fastest official recorded time in the history of the league. This link in USA Today shows Jackson running the 40-yard dash at the Louisiana Superdome. You may be stunned at the time he ran in this article. Darrius Heyward-Bey is fast? Not compared to this guy.

YouTube is loaded with highlights of Bo Jackson’s speed on display. Coaches always stress that their players take good angles at ball carriers to make tackles. With Bo’s speed, the laws of geometry never seemed to apply. There was no “angle.”

Anyone with the speed to get to Jackson was rarely big enough to make the tackle. At 230 pounds, Bo Jackson was always willing to run through defensive backs and even linebackers. He started runs like Earl Campbell and finished them like Deion Sanders.

His stats confirm his greatness.

He scored from his red zone and his opponents’ red zone with runs of at least 88 yards in three of his four pro seasons. He averaged 5.5 yards per carry for his career before suffering a career ending hip injury. Compare his yards per carry to any NFL Hall of Famer.

Adrian Peterson appears to be the closest thing we have to Bo Jackson in the NFL right now. Before you laugh at the comparison consider one thing. Bo Jackson played in 23 NFL games in his career. He spent two years listed as Marcus Allen’s fullback and played only half of all four seasons because he played baseball as well. Bo’s highlight reel is as long as some Hall of Famers’ with a ten year career. Take Adrian Peterson out of training camp and cut his career games by a third and imagine what his highlight film would look like. It would be impressive, but nothing like Bo.

While his time with the Raiders was cut short, his impact on the franchise was enormous. In part because of Bo Jackson, Raider Nation covers every corner of the country.

He was every great running back tied into one.

I am optimistic about the potential the Oakland Raiders now have in their backfield. Darren McFadden is one of the fastest players in football with the potential to be a superstar. Michael Bush is agile and fast with tremendous size and muscle. Justin Fargas is a speedy little warrior who plays like a man twice his size.

If this three-headed monster stays together it could be great, but I can’t help but remember a time when Bo Jackson was our Bush, Fargas, and McFadden.

Opinion: Who Gets the Carries in Oakland?

Everyone knows Oakland will be pounding the ball this year with their three-headed monster of Justin Fargas, Michael Bush, and Darren McFadden. More than ever, NFL teams are using a combination of backs to wear down defenses and avoid injuries.

What no one knows right now is who, if anyone, will be the featured back.

Fortunately, they all three have separate skill sets, and each of them seems to have the ability to be the “workhorse.”

Here’s what we know about each:

Darren McFadden can run like the wind. His speed in college is what undoubtedly caught the eye of Al Davis. He showed the ability to carry the load last season against Kansas City, but battled turf toe most of the year. I’m hoping this is why he didn’t leave safety Bernard Pollard in his wake in Week Two.

He is not exceptional at breaking tackles. His hips are tight when avoiding tacklers and he hasn’t yet shown the strength to move the pile. He has good vision and amazing acceleration. He hits the hole very quickly and keeps his legs churning well through arm tackles.

He looked good on short yardage a few times last season and terrible on others. He is an excellent option out of the backfield for short routes. Oakland even used him down the field rather often.

Darren will probably be Al’s pick to get most of the carries next season. He wasn’t picked fourth overall to back up anyone. If he looks like he did last year against Kansas City no one will complain.

Justin Fargas is an Oakland Raider to the core. He looks like a Raider, acts like a Raider, and is beloved by the fans. He gets more out his motor than anyone his size. He never stops. If some more talented backs in the league had his drive they would be MVP candidates each year.  

He is fearless and throws his 205 pounds at tacklers like a pin ball. Fargas is listed at 220, but isn’t close to that weight soaking wet.

Justin Fargas is not great out of the backfield, but is a solid pass blocker. He has the speed to break the big one but we haven’t seen one yet. If he starts breaking more long runs, you better believe Al Davis will take notice.

It has been rumored that Fargas is on the trading block. I hope to everything that is sacred, Fargas is in Oakland this season and seasons to come. His energy is contagious and this team needs to have him.

I believe he will carry the ball 100 times this year and hopefully more. If the young guys are slow to develop at protecting JaMarcus Russell look for that number to double.

Michael Bush started strong last season against Kansas City and finished with one of the great performances in Raider history against Tampa Bay in the final game of the season. With Tampa’s playoff hopes on the line, Bush torched them for over 180 all-purpose yards and two touchdowns.

He ran over their linebackers and ran past their secondary. Watch the video of him running away from Ronde Barber.

At about 250 pounds, Bush is exactly what every team is looking for—a back who can wear down the defense. Despite his size, he has the rare ability to beat defenses with speed and agility. Bush should get the goal-line carries, and hopefully a lot.

I think Bush will be the odd man out in Oakland this year, but I hope he gets over half the carries. Yes, I believe Bush is the difference maker for this offense. I would love to see Bush get 800-1000 yards rushing primarily in the first two or three quarters of games.

From there, we should see McFadden and Fargas pick up huge chunks of yards against  battered defensive fronts.

The Raiders schedule is tough and everything always looks much better on paper, but there is reason for optimism this season in Oakland.

Regardless of how they are used, all three must stay in the Silver & Black.

Hopefully Al Davis will agree.

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