We have two incredible young RBs and a returning 1000 yrd rusher, an incredibly talented young QB, Two young dominant corners, two young and dominant Safeties, two young and dominant LBs, and much much more. Really, your right! The future does look dark, because the Silver and Black cloud of dominance is about to return to the AFC West.

So as far as the sky being dark over Oakland, thats how we like it on Sundays!! Its the Black Hole buddy!! I can’t wait for Monday Night Football!! You??

OakFoSho

then yes. I can admit that the Raiders made some mistakes that made longer the inevitable rebuilding process. The team that went to the SuperBowl in 2002, was comprised largely of veterans that came to the Raiders for one last hurrah and shot at a title. After the Super Bowl loss, many with a bad memory think the Raiders collapsed. However, 6 game into the 2003 season, the Raiders were 4-2 and on their way to victory in Baltimore when Gannon was injured on a hit by Derrick Brooks. It was a clean hit, as Gannon ducked his head, but that hit was the real tumbling point for the Raiders.

The 2003 team was on its way to the playoffs, again, but when you take the MVP of the league away from a team, a veteran team making one last push, the results really aren’t that surprising. From that point on, the Raiders were in rebuilding mode. The rebuilding phase was going to take a few years as it was, but there were several unforeseen problems, that would extend the process.

Callahan was a bust HC and Gannon was the real and only leader of that team. Turner is an O Coordinator not a head coach, and that will again become evident in SD soon. Randy Moss had one good game as a Raider then gave up and acted like a baby. Art Shell was a decent hire, but the people brought in on the offense doomed his tenure, and aggravated the Moss and Porter problems. So after the loss of the MVP, Rich Gannon, 2003 & 2004 were obvious rebuilding years regardless, and with the amount of veterans on the 2003 team probably 2005 too. 2006 was a year of high hopes with Art Shell coming back, but that was a failure for all the reasons mentioned above.

Last year the Raiders really turned it around. They were in all but three games in the 4th quarter, and ahead in nearly half of those. Kiff really changed the culture, and began the rebuilding process that was long overdue. With the influx of talent this season, Raider Nations excitement is extremely justified.

OakFoSho

“the Donkeys only WON more than five games once.” and “THERE was a time”

No Sleep!! 6:35am! I just graduated from grad school on Sunday, and have been partying like a rock star. My sleep schedule is all jacked up.

OakFoSho

..but it wouldn’t relate much to the last two or three decades.

Shanahan rarely has losing seasons. When he does, it is reasonable to expect that someone will get fired. Shanahan’s record since being in Denver has been stellar, in terms of SBs, playoff appearances, playoff wins, and records against AFC West division teams. In fact, it is clearly no less reasonable than an owner firing head coaches left and right for records ranging from 2-14 to several 4-12s with a 5-11 in the mix (I won’t mention Al Davis by name). : )

Ok, I will. Davis has a mixed record on “loyalty”. I think the raiders will earn a lot of respect from the rest of the league, and be able to do more than brag about winning in the distant past when they get rid of the Davis family. Here’s what I mean by a mixed bag on loyalty.

On the positive side he hired the first hispanic coach (Flores in ‘79), the first black coach (Shell in ‘89), and the first woman as president of an NFL team (Amy Trask). (Of course he also fired one of them, Shell, twice. Flores won 2 SBs as a coach for oakland. But after a 5-10 season he was “promoted” to a front office job, and let go a year later. Trask’s record as a team attorney, her actual role, has been atrocious. More on that in a moment).

On the other hand, in 1979 Davis took over the team by restructuring his partnership contract with co-managing partner Wayne Valley while Valley was out of the country attending the ‘72 Olympics. It was Valley who brought Davis to the raiders, and Valley who poured his own money into keeping the team afloat in its early years. This tragic incident doesn’t endear Davis to many co-owners or old time football fans.

While he was still a co-manager of the team, Davis became commissioner of the then AFL. He ended up trying to stop the merger of the AFL with the NFL (he liked the compensation that the raiders could get from the NFL), despite the fact that the AFL teams’ owners (members of the AFL) wanted the merger. The rest of the AFL went behind Davis’ back, since he wouldn’t carry out their directions, and completed the merger without him. He “chose” to leave his position shortly after and went back to oakland.

Davis also turned his back on oakland, taking the franchis to LA. While there he made a deal with the city of Irwindale, which paid Davis a ten million dollar deposit. Davis “changed his mind”, but kept the deposit.

In the early ‘80’s Davis wanted to move the team out of oakland, but the owners voted 20 to nothing (and five abstention votes). As I wrote earlier, they DID end up moving. But when he wanted to move back to oakland, he sued the same league that tried to prevent the move in the first place, by claiming that the league wasn’t interested in helping them finance another stadium complete with luxury boxes! (oakland lost the suit 9-3 in a jury trial. A city district court judge threw out the decision on the suspicion that one of the jurors didn’t like the raiders, and another might have broken a jurror conduct rule). Both a unanimous State appeals court and (later) the State Supreme Court overturned the district judge.

Davis’ loyalty was also called into question when he was the lone owner in the NFL to join with the USFL in attacking the NFL.

Davis also sued oakland’s taxpayers and the oakland Coliseum Authority over the Personal Seat License fiasco. Davis sued the two entities because he felt (with losing records) that the city or the Authority should guaruntee sold out games! The settlement left fans without their PSLs.

Last (and the most funny), Davis’ team lost the SB to TB in 2002. How did they handle the loss? By suing the Buccaneers for copyright infringment (they both use pirate logos)! They also sued the Panthers, claiming that the Panthers uniform and logo was too close to the silver and black of the raiders.(??) The raiders also lost this suit, because the legal wizards that worked for Al filed in a California Court. I’m not a lawyer, but a grad degree in political science does teach you that copyright laws (intellectual property) are the jurisdiction of federal courts, not state.

Where does this place the raiders today? A once great financial empire (and I mean that with respect, because Davis is the problem, not the raiders or the fans), ranked 29th in attendence since 2003, and (despite what used to ba a major international market for raiders gear) ranks 28th in total financial value of all 32 NFL teams (only $736 million). Forbes magazine tracks the NFL team finances each year.

I know we have our differences. But I honestly believe that when the raider fans somehow get rid of Davis, his distrust of coaches, his disregard for player character, his paranoid legal issues, and the mentality he fosters of “toughness” to the exclusion of “team work”, only then will the raiders not only start winning games again, selling more tickets and merchandise, but also be a feared and respected rival. Because of Davis, the team instead has a reputation for suing, making excuses, paranoia about the league and officials, and losing.

What’s good for the raiders is good for the AFC West, football, and even the Broncos (who would really prefer to have a rivalry with a team that is their equal). It’s a terrible analogy, but I hated the “Batman” movie that had Jack Nickelson as the Joker. You wait the whole movie for the climactic end, only to watch Batman beat the crap out of the joker without much suspense as to who is going to win. (The new Christian Bale reboots of Batman are much better).

I worry about SD because they really are a good team. They also have a jerk for a QB, so that maked the rivalry fun. I worry about the Chiefs, because (even though they aren’t winning) they play hard at Arrowhead. The Chiefs also worry me because they are building smart, drafting for key positions instead of bringing in big names. (Giving up big name Allen to get more draft help was a great move for the long term). But oakland seems (year after year) to get great, big, elite names; then they tell the other teams to “watch out”, and then nothing seems to happen. This year reminds me of the last few years in that regard.

I look forward to the return of real “R”aiders football. But with Al sinking the team, and forgoing long term sustainable improvement for the “win now” approach, I don’t see it happening anytime soon. When it does, Broncos fans and raiders fans will both have something to enjoy.

it would be nice if we could erase parts of our past and for get them like they never occurred, but thats just not possible. That extends beyond football, but sometimes the parts of us that we most want to forget teach us the most about who we are. For the Raiders, this past five seasons has only served to highlight the glorious past that will forever be a part of Raider mystique. The Raiders are the Yankees of the NFL, you love um or you hate um, and this last five seasons have given the haters all the excuses in the world for people to pile on the Raiders and dismiss their legacy. Hell BSPN is so anti Raider that they have attempted to take the term ‘Raider Nation’ and apply it to the Red Sox to attempt to further dismiss the Raiders importance. Well, it hasn’t worked, and my argument still stands. It is a testament to the Raiders, and Al Davis that it took more than 4 decades for the Raiders to fall from glory into a slump. A slump that all franchises have had, some worse than others, in their history, and it is was only a matter of time until The Nation turned it around.

OakFoSho