Raidertopia

More drama in Raiderland.

Pretty much all bad.

First, the guy having the best camp gets a broken foot.  Chaz Schilens was looking great at perhaps the most critical skill position – WR.  Or at least, the skill position that needed to be improved the most.  Even more important when you consider the fact that the #7 overall draft choice, Heyward-Bey, looks to have hands of stone.

Then, there’s the beat down the Raiders evidently received from the 49ers in a recent scrimmage.  That was truly depressing to read about.

Lastly, the news that Tom Cable punched out an assistant coach and might be charged with something or suspended by the league.

Cable….Bumaye! might be funny, but definitely not what the Raiders needed to start a season – more distraction and controversy.  And more fodder for the Raider-hating media.

This says it all:

In the five seasons Ryan oversaw Oakland’s defense, the Raiders allowed an NFL-worst 101 rushing touchdowns and the second most rushing yards per game at 138.7. Only the Browns were worse, giving up 141.2 yards per game.

The Raiders had a 20-60 record in that span, going through four head coaches, four offensive coordinators, six offensive play-callers and only Ryan as defensive coordinator. Ryan was extremely popular with his players, in part because he steadfastly refused to criticize them in public, and he also got along well with owner Al Davis.

Good riddance.  It can only get better from here on out on defense….literally.

This is my last weekend in London after a fantastic two months, though the weather could’ve been better.

I was extremely upset, after just a couple weeks into my stay here, that DirecTV’s SuperCast stopped working for me – both the Adobe Air app and the browser-based Flash versions.  I had to resort to watching ESPN’s GameCast and listening to KSFO.  In hindsight, it probably would have been worse actually watching these “performances”.

Anyway, here are just my random notes from the latest Raider fiasco:

I like Tom Flores telling it like it is on KSFO – questioning why the Raiders (soon to be former defensive coordinator, Rob Ryan) keep rotating their high-priced DTs.  Every two plays.  As if they get too winded to play an entire series.  He called it, “disgusting”.

Why is Andrew Walter the emergency QB?

We’re number one!  I thought the Raiders were doing somewhat better overall in terms of penalties this year only to see that they’re tops in the league once again.

With Fargas, McFadden, and Bush, why sign Louis Rankin, another RB, to the roster?

Raiders knew Patsies were going to run screens and still couldn’t stop them.

Patsies running, passing, scoring at will.  Something like 350 yards in the first half.

Fair catch on a kickoff?  Tony Stewart, I guess, doesn’t get paid enough for returning kicks.  There wasn’t a guy within 20 yards of him when he fair caught that ball.

Nnamdi has three holding penalties so far and is getting burned by former Raider and upstanding citizen, Randy Moss, fairly regularly.  Hate to say it, but the way he’s hinting at going elsewhere next year, I kind of don’t mind this.  Maybe he ends up staying if his value drops enough.

Way to give the momentum right back to the Patsies – after a big kickoff return for a TD, allow a kickoff return for a TD.  Untouched and made it look like the Raiders had eight guys on the field.

Our money guy, JaMarcus, looks lost again.  He badly underthrew Lelie in the end zone when the Raiders were actually driving, resulting in an interception.  And why can’t he hold onto the ball?  The most exciting thing about this guy so far in his career is what pimp-gear he’s going to be wearing after the game.

Did Ronald Curry actually catch a TD pass?  Shocking.  Formerly known as my favorite Raider player.

Bright side – I’ve totally turned around my opinion of Johnnie Lee Higgins.  I could do without his dancing in the end zone, but he is one of the few bright spots on the Raiders this year.  He looked absolutely horrible last season, but with the exception of a couple of questionable decisions like fielding a kickoff near the sideline and running out of bounds at the three, he’s looked promising.  Hope my opinion on JaMarcus is equally premature.

If JaMarcus fails as a QB, looks like he can’t be converted to a receiver because he can’t catch either.  Michael Bush threw him a softball that he dropped.

Why not make the embarassment complete?  Moss catches two touchdowns.  Now, LaMont Jordan runs 49 yards for a TD and is a few yards short of 100.  Oh and by the way….Jordan has a grand total of 128 yards all year.  49 points and still six minutes left.  They’re closing in on 300 yards rushing.  And don’t forget, this Patsy team is hobbled.  They even had to sign a LB out of retirement.

As if there’s any more reason to hate Mr. Personality, Bill Belicheat, the late challenge on a little 4 yard catch with his team ahead 49-20 and 2:33 left, just adds to the hate.  What a small man.

Why don’t the Raiders run McFadden outside more?  Why don’t they run more inventive plays off the “Wildcat” formation?  They seem to just run up the middle.

Patsies not only had almost 300 yards rushing, they averaged almost 8 yards per rush.

The Raiders are like the US auto industry.  They need a rescue desperately.  It’s a sad, sad state of affairs and this season can’t end soon enough.

As each losing season passes, as each inept performance on display, as each embarrassment is televised nationally, as the great history of the Raiders is being tarnished week by week, Mike Lombardi’s words appear more true than ever…

I have heard the laughing, I have seen the dumb mistakes and I have been in that airport waiting for the plane ride home after getting my butt kicked in. And no one can imagine how bad that feels — not because of the losing but the fact there is no hope. Not one SINGLE ounce of hope — for tomorrow or next week, or next year. And two years from now, the same thing will happen unless “someone in the building” stops trying to coach and control the team. When I first started in football, I would study this man and learn as much as possible about football and the workings of a personnel department. I had great respect for him and always ignored the bad comments I might hear. When I worked for the 49ers, Bill Walsh told me “the most football I ever learned was (while) working for the Raiders,” and that prompted me to want to join them many years later. Much of what we tried to install in Cleveland in terms of the player personnel department came from ideas I stole from reading and talking to “someone in the building.” But that was then and this is now — and now he is more interested in preserving his legacy and having articles written about his greatness and what player he is making into the next great Raider than he is in winning….(read more)

Raider fans don’t particularly like the guy since he has seemingly been holding a grudge against the Raiders since he left the organization. He takes verbal pot shots at them every chance he gets, but I think he’s spot on here. And it’s very unfortunate.

I agree with a lot of other bloggers that are calling for a kind of boycott. Stop buying tickets to home games and stop buying merchandise. A message has to be sent to Al Davis. As if the continual losing hasn’t made enough of a mockery of the team’s famous slogans and made a light bulb go off in his head.

We should have all seen this coming with the whole Marcus Allen situation years ago. He took a classy guy, a hall of famer, a “great Raider” as he himself would say and benched him for completely egotistical purposes. The saddest thing was that Allen was needed on the field to win football games. Remember “Just Win, Baby”? He, of course, ended up burning the Raiders when he changed teams and joined their hated, divisional rivals.  I used to give Davis the benefit of the doubt there, thinking something happened behind closed doors that I wasn’t privy to. I truly believe now that it was a total power play and Allen was getting bigger than Davis, in Davis’ eyes.  His ego couldn’t take it.  The whole soap opera this year with the team and Lane Kiffin is similar in many respects.

So much for getting wiser with age.

Al – Please hire a General Manager, and (more importantly) go away and retire.

I guess Raider fans can take solace in that, even though losing, they have been losing in varied and interesting ways.  Like performance art.  Yes, interesting if not maddening.  Depressing, isn’t it?

There’s a lot of dumb in football. For example, how many times have you seen a dumb defensive player pick up an incomplete pass and run the other way with it (yes, I’m talking about you Rickey Brown)?  Or celebrate before crossing the goal line (calling Chris Johnson and DeSean Jackson).

You thought the fact that Donovan McNabb, who plays what is regarded as the smartest position in the NFL,  didn’t know that there could be a tie in the NFL was pretty darn dumb, right?  (I still can’t believe that one)

Well, Tom Cable may have trumped them all last weekend.  The Bay Area writers are having a field day with him, but rightfully so, for calling that ill-advised fake field goal Sunday against the lowly Chiefs.

Normally, I’m all for a little razzle dazzle to keep your opponent off balance.  The Raiders haven’t done enough of it these last several seasons.  But in this case, it was plain crazy.  Here’s why:

• It was against an opponent the Raiders should beat straight up, without the need for trickery.
• It was 4th and 10.  Not 4th and short, but a whopping ten yards.
• The plan was for Janikowski to run the ten yards (plus the extra 7 yards or so behind the line of scrimmage) for the first down.  Yes, Janikowski.  The fat, Polish guy.  Probably, the slowest guy on the team.
• Upside-downside.  There was much more risk than reward here.  Kick the field goal and you’re up three.  Fail and you give a weak opponent renewed confidence and decent field position.  The worst happened, of course, and that weak opponent took it the other way for six.  Instead of up by 3, the team with easily the most pathetic offense in football is down 7.  10 point swing.  Game over.
• Did I mention this was against the sad sack Chiefs?  Why? Why? Why?

I really like Tom Cable.  Both for his mentality and the fact that he has a loyalty to this team, being a fan growing up, but that play alone was probably enough to relegate him back to assistant coach next year – I hope with the Raiders still.  Head Coach though?  I don’t think so, unless the Raiders hire a dynamic offensive coordinator and he’s more a teacher and figurehead.

The Raiders looked like the historically bad 2006 Raider team today in Baltimore, losing 29-10 and dropping to 2-5 on the season.  I’m extra sad because my brother and two nephews made the trip all the way from St. Louis to witness it.

Bad defense, really bad special teams, and embarrassingly bad offense.

I could have written this post mortem around the middle of the second quarter because the game was essentially over by then.  It was 19-0 and the Raiders had something like 35 yards total offense.

If you could look at one stat, try third down conversions.  The Raiders have been horrible on third downs all year.  This game, the offense was only 2 for 13, while the defense allowed Baltimore to convert 10 of 18.

Could it have been any more obvious which Ryan brother is the smart one and which is the dumb one?  Rex’s defense was without three out of four starters in the secondary and started Raider bust Fabian Washington, yet they looked like they were in another league.  They attacked with blitzes and allowed no running room for the Raiders.  Raider runners averaged less than 2 yards per carry.  The Raiders defense, on the other hand, looked weak against the run again and could not stop the trickery and let a rookie quarterback get way too comfortable (again!) in the pocket.  Zero sacks.  Very few QB pressures.  One very noticeable zone defense mistake which resulted in a 70 yard TD pass.

Rob Ryan is not putting the players in a position to win and utilize their skills best.  He is just an absolutely terrible defensive coordinator this year and for the last five years and is proof that Al Davis is lost in what he’s doing with this once proud franchise.  Note that last week’s win versus the Jets could have easily been another loss if Brett Favre hadn’t over thrown a wide open receiver in overtime against a loose Raider zone.

That said, a lot of Raven third down conversions were accomplished due to Raider missed tackles and  some poor run defense.

The Raider Special Teams contributed  to this pathetic display of football as well.  They allowed a huge punt return by a back up returner that led to a field goal, made some untimely penalties, and featured the Bonehead Play of the Week:  With the Raiders struggling with bad field position all game, Johnnie Lee Higgins fields a kick off at the two yard line while he allows his momentum to carry him out of bounds.  Note to Johnnie – let those bounce into the end zone and down it there.

But all in all, the core of the Raider loss was due to the inept offense, just like back in 2006 when the Raiders went to Baltimore with Aaron Brooks as their quarterback.  They are painful to watch.  While the offensive line has greatly improved since then, the results are the same.  I think that in this game, they layed right to Baltimore’s strengths and insisted on running the ball up the middle on just about every first and second down….and, curiously, a lot of third downs.  Please be more inventive Greg Knapp! The other offensive coordinator schooled you today.  Remember, both teams had rookie quarterbacks….actually, JaMarcus is not a rookie, which should have put him a little ahead of Flacco.

JaMarcus looked better on a couple of his long throws, but his accuracy and decision making still bother me.  He just looks like he’s locking into one guy on a lot of plays.  This game showed that the Raiders’ unimaginative offense actually only puts one receiver out into a pattern, so I’m not so sure I should blame JaMarcus or the play calling.  I do like that he took off and ran it one time though.

This game was a step backwards.

The Raiders committed a whopping 14 penalties, mostly of the discipline-lacking, pre-snap variety.

And the Raiders won?

Typical Raider buffoonery -  a neutral zone infraction by the Raiders on a Jet punt gave New York a first down and led to their only touchdown.  Oh, and it negated a nice Higgins punt return to boot.

Don’t pull my leg and tell me the Raiders still won.

The Raiders extended their streak and once again could not punch it in from the red zone in the entire first half.

You say the Raiders won?

The Raiders were only 4 for 17 in third down conversions.

The Raiders couldn’t have won.

The Raiders were outscored again in the fourth quarter.

Their typical fourth quarter meltdown to lose in the end….wait….they won?

Janikowski missed an important 40 yard field goal in the second quarter that would have put the Raiders up and perhaps helped to win the game in regulation.

Ah yes, the inconsistent kicker that the Raiders wasted a first round pick on….once again costs them a game.  They surely must have lost by those three points, right?

A running back on the 27th ranked rushing offense gained 159 yards on the Raiders.  Justin Fargas, on the other hand, averaged a measly 2.6 yards per carry.

The Raiders surely couldn’t have won.

The Jets kicked a long, 52 yard field goal to tie the game with three seconds left in the game, barely eeking it over the crossbar.  And that was after a time out was called by the Raiders just moments before a miss.

Of course, the Raiders lost, right?  In their patented torture-the-loyal-fan way, where victory is dangled before them and then snatched away by bad coaching, tackling, penalties….whatever it takes.

Speaking of the kicking game… In my view, this calling time out to freeze the kicker strategy is self defeating.  I always thought that it just gives the kicker a free, practice kick to warm him up and adjust to the turf and wind conditions.  Jay Feely confirmed that after the game:

“I heard the whistle before I started, which is an advantage to the kicker,” Feely said. “If you’re going to do that, do that before he kicks. I can kick it down the middle, see what the wind does and adjust. It helps the kicker tremendously.”

Live and learn, Tom Cable.  Live and learn.

Now, back to my stream of disbelief….

The Raiders’ Michael Huff loses his starting job, yet is in there just enough to drop an interception that hits him in the gut and probably would have won the game earlier in overtime.

Just another event, call it Raider karma, that leads to a heartbreaking Raider loss?

The Raiders offensive play calling was overly conservative in the fourth quarter with only a three point lead, bringing out boos from the home crowd.

Surely, just conservative enough to keep the Raider defense on the field and tired, thus allowing Brett Favre to drive the Jets to victory, right?

And the Raiders gave the great Brett Favre three (three!) chances to beat them in overtime?

This has 1-5  and a last place tie with the lowly Chiefs in the AFC West written all over it.

Wait?  Regardless of all this, the Raiders came away with a 16-13 victory?  You don’t say?

I can’t take too much satisafaction from it because it was a totally maddening experience.  I must have thought to myself, “here we go again”, at least a half dozen times during the course of the game.

A win feels a heck of a lot better than a loss though.  Enjoy it guys and let’s fix the mistakes before the trip to Charm City.

I think he conned me like he conned all you people.
Al Davis on Lane Kiffin

At least this team keeps things interesting, even when they’re struggling.

Should we have seen this coming when Davis called Kiffin “Lance” at the opening press conference?

Even by Raider standards, today was a strange, stunning day.

Al Davis finally fired Lane Kiffin as Head Coach and gave a long, detailed press conference.  If everything is true – from the Arkansas job interest to lying to the press – it’s hard to argue with the dismissal.  Actually, it begs the question as to why he wasn’t fired earlier.

In retrospect, I was giving Lane a lot of leeway because he’s a young coach, learning the ropes.  Al Davis even mentioned this.  Kiffin was just not a good Head Coach yet.  In fact, he did some really bad coaching.  His clock management the last two weeks was atrocious.  Davis also mentioned asking him why he didn’t call the time outs in Buffalo and was given an “unacceptable” answer.  His offensive play calling did not produce touchdowns.  His offensive playcalling couldn’t even produce critical first downs and third down conversions when it meant the difference between a win and a loss.

It’s also disappointing to hear that he didn’t want to pick JaMarcus.  The letter Al Davis displayed at the presser stated that fact and some other interesting things, including the fact that he did have control over what was called on defense.  So if he had control, why didn’t he tell Ryan to be more aggressive (i.e. blitz) on defense, especially in that national TV embarrassment on Monday night?

This whole thing can become even more weird tomorrow when Kiffin gives us his side of the story.  Interesting though, that Kiffin skirted the question on BSPN about talking to Al after the Buffalo game.

I really like Tom Cable.  He impressed me in his press conference.  I love the fact that he said he was a Raider fan growing up as a kid and how this is a dream of his.  He is undoubtedly an excellent Offensive Line coach and looks to be a great motivator.  Now let’s see if he makes a good Head Coach.  I’ve got a good feeling about this guy.

Then again, can things get worse?

Update:  Maybe even better than the press conference itself, were Al’s post-PC ramblings as transcribed by the notorious Tim Kawakami.

Raiders lose on a game-winning 38 yard field goal by Buffalo.

The Raiders controlled the game and especially dominated defensively through three quarters.

Then, Rob Ryan did basically what Johnnie Lee Higgins did on his 84 yard TD reception – didn’t keep the peddle to the metal and let up.

Although the offense was pretty anemic and the play calling could have taken more risks in the second half, Ryan’s defensive play calling in the fourth quarter was reminiscent of the Denver debacle on opening day.  Passive and zone defenses.  The ridiculous Gibril Wilson ejection, I think, really hurt the Raiders on the last two buffalo drives.  I don’t know if that went into Ryan’s thinking when calling defenses or not, but Edwards picked the Raiders apart after that.

I know, I know, Ryan fans will point to the blitz he called that turned into a 14 yard TD reception by Buffalo’s Parrish, but that was too little, too late.  The lack of pressure before that enabled Edwards to get his groove back.

This game should have been won.  I thought after the Higgins TD it was won.  The Raiders just needed the D to finish them, but instead they let them get up and come back.  I’d much rather lose being aggressive than passive.

I don’t want to excuse the offense, because a couple of first downs here or there could have finished them as well.  The play calling was entirely predictable and conservative.  They couldn’t get six when in the red zone three times.  I don’t know where Ronald Curry was during the game….JaMarcus obviously didn’t either because he only got one pass thrown his way.  Javon Walker disappeared after the first quarter as well.  But the offense is young and inexperienced.  It’s obvious  that the defense is the strength of this team and that’s why most of the blame I place is on that side of the ball.

Ryan just let up and stopped using what was working for three quarters.

Well then, let’s just promote him to Head Coach!  (At least that might get him out of defensive play calling)

Note:  On the lack of calling timeouts by Kiffin, I do believe this is a valid criticism.  He had his reasons, but as a beat writer wrote, “Kiffin’s job is to get his team to do its job, not hope for the other team to fail“.  He should have used his time outs and had faith that the defense would hold and then with some time and a big kickoff return, the offense had a chance to get within Jano’s field goal range.  If he had called a timeout after Lynch’s 5 yd run at 1:11 and then another after the 2nd down run (a one yard loss), there would still be close to a half minute if the Bills took the play clock down to zero before kicking on 3rd down.  Another factor is that those timeouts may have helped the defense rest a bit and perhaps allowed Kirk Morrison to convince the genius Ryan that some gap blitzes might be good to try.

This is over a week old and brings up some bad memories, but it’s so hilarious, it’s worth posting. It’s the Thai-Indian News take on the Raiders Monday Night Football embarrassment: Oakland Raiders beaten 41-14 by minnow-like Broncos. Here’s a sample from our Thai-Indian friends:

Oakland Raiders suffered Jay Cutler’s strength and rocket arm to loose face and credence wit a defeat of 14-41….he was the element that led a campaign that saw the Oakland Raiders smashed and demoralized to humility.

The take away here is that even that mega-niche NFL fan base of Indians living in Thailand could tell that Rob Ryan doesn’t know how to run a defense:

Oakland was beaten due to their simpleton game.

But I still don’t get the “minnow” reference.