Would the Raiders have been a playoff team with Jeff Garcia?

I picked Oakland to win 8 games this year, mostly because I thought that the team would either see better play from third-year QB JaMarcus Russell, or that they'd get competence from off-season free agent pick up Jeff Garcia. Instead, Garcia was auto-ejected in training camp, before the out of shape Russell could demonstrate a full-blown QB controversy, and the club muddled through with the second worst scoring offense in the NFL, with just 12.3 points a game. Only the Rams were worse, with 10.9 points a game, and the next worst added a full field goal per game (Tampa, Cleveland). They were also 31st in yards per game, with 266 (New Orleans led with 403), tied for 31st in turnover ratio (-13, with the Rams; only Detroit was worse), and Russell's stats were even worse, somehow.

Considering that 9-7 got you a playoff berth in the AFC this year, and the Raiders played in a division with one terrible team all year (KC), and one terrible team late (Denver)... well, it seemed possible. So let's get into it.

Week 1: 24-20 home loss to the Chargers. Kind of unfair to pin a loss on Russell when he actually performed tolerably by his standards (12 of 30 for 208, 1 TD, 2 INTs, with the touchdown coming late to give the Raiders a lead that the defense blew), but still... it's a home game, the running game was huge early, and the Chargers were very flat. When you have a team that's trying to turn around a culture of failure, you can't blow opportunities like this, and I suspect that merely competent QBing in the first half gets the home team a safe lead. It was also telling how the ESPN telecast treated him with beyond kid gloves on this one; it wasn't exactly a state secret that this was going to be a terrible QB.

Week 2: 13-10 road win over Kansas City. Unlike Week One, the Raider defense held a lead by forcing turnovers; unlike Week One, Russell did next to nothing to deserve the win, other than avoid picks (7 of 24 for 109). You can argue that these kinds of efforts helped to wear the Raider defense down later in the year (the run defense got particularly awful), of course.

Week 3: 23-3 home loss to the Broncos. JaRuss was 12 of 21 (wow! over 50%!) for, um, 61 yards with 2 picks. I'm pretty sure I've seen better lines at the high school level, but the Broncos dominated this game on the lines, and it's hard to see how Garcia would have been 21 points better than anyone, really.

Week 4: 29-6 road loss to the Texans. Another signature line (12 of 33 for 128; Russ at this point has a 40% completion percentage for the year) as the Texans solved their run defense woes.

Now, um... I'm not sure what world a QB with absolutely no redeeming qualities keeps the gig after four fairly terrible games. JR was bringing absolutely nothing to the table here; he didn't avoid turnovers, provide meaningful scrambling numbers, or even keep the opposing safeties honest with the threat of a deep ball, which is particularly crazy, given how the only thing that the Raider wideouts did well in 2009 was run fast. Garcia would have, one suspects, done *something*; either picked up a few yards scrambling, thrown for a higher completion percentage, and maybe even gotten the opposition to stop stacking the box.

Week 5: 44-7 road loss to the Giants. One of Russ's better stat lines, really (8 of 13 for 100), in a complete de-pantsing against a team that we thought at the time was, well, good. I saw a fair amount of this game, and honestly, this was a quit job. After a month of watching the offense, I think I'd have quit, too.

Week 6: The shocking 13-9 home win against the Eagles. Against a game plan that abandoned the run, the Raiders took advantage of mistakes and a dominant line effort. JR went 17 of 28 for 224 with a touchdown and 2 picks, one of his best efforts of the year, but most of it came on a breakdown bomb to TE Zach Miller on what might have been the worst play of the year for the Eagle defense. (There were many candidates.)

Week 7: The best game of the year is followed by the worst loss, a 38-0 home evisceration by the Jets, in which JR is (finally) benched after a 6 for 11 for 61 yards and 2 pick performance. My favorite part of this one was how Russ sulked and looked apoplectic on the bench after his turnovers. That's leadership! (And no, Garcia doesn't turn this game around any more than Bruce Gradkowski did. The Jets were not to be denied on this day.)

Week 8: A 24-16 loss to the Chargers in San Diego. JR went 14 of 22 for 109 with a pick, as the Raiders at least covered the spread, but an over-reliance on field goal kicker Sebastian Janikowski sent them down. A more effective passing game, or at least a few more first downs, could have made a major difference, though it's possible that the Chargers were just doing their usual routine of not playing harder than they had to.

At this point in the season, Oakland was 2-6, and you have to wonder if the locker room was still with the team. That kind of thing is strongly represented by a willingness to defend the run, and the Raiders didn't do this well, really. One win over the Chargers would have kept them in the game; two would have put them in prime position to move up in the division once the Broncos fell apart. But in any event, they'd still have been playing meaningful games.

After the bye came the most damming game, a Week 10 16-10 home loss to the Chiefs where Russell went 8 of 23 for 64 yards. For the second time, he's sent to the bench, and while Gradkowski is able to move the team (5 of 9 for 49 yards is positively Monatana-esque for the 2009 Raiders), two picks gives the Chiefs the wiggle room they needed to tie the Raiders for last in the division with a 2-7 record. Once more, I'm giving this game to the Garcia Raiders.

Week 11: Gradkowski leads the home Raiders to a stunning 20-17 win over the Bengals, with the backup QB going 17 for 34 with 183 yards, 2 touchdowns and a pick and a lost fumble. While Cincy ran for over 170 yards, they also put the ball on the ground a lot. And had the Raiders spent the first 10 weeks starting a QB, instead of a train wreck, this game might have put them over ..500.

Week 12: A 24-7 road loss on Thanksgiving to Dallas. As is the usual custom with this game, it was as big of a fix as you see in this league.

Week 13: The third shocking home win over the year was a 27-24 win over the Steelers. Gradkowski throws for over 300 yards as the Steeler secondary failed utterly without S Troy Polamalu, as WR Louis Murphy had a huge day with 4 catches for 126 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Week 14: A 21-point home loss to the Redskins as Gradkowski goes down with an injury, based on the line's inability to keep rookie DL Brian Okakpo from four sacks. He was 10 of 18 for 153 before going down, and Russell relieved with one of his usual low average yards per completion games (10 of 16 for 74 and an interception). This game also points out the problem in running the analysis, in that it assumes that Garcia would stay healthy for the year behind a piddling offensive line, but that can't be helped. We'll give this game to DC Not United regardless of who the Raider QB would have been, though the score would have been closer, of course.

Week 15: The team's best road win of the year, a 20-19 shocker over the Broncos in Denver that, more than anything, kept the Mountain Highers from the playoffs. Raider coach Tom Cable showed his disdain for JR with a Charlie Frye start, and for once the backup was clearly, um, better (9 of 17 for 68 with a pick for Frye, 5 of 11 for 47 with a touchdown for JR). The ground game was the real reason for success, with late-season specialist Michael Bush going for 133, and Darren McFadden, Frye and Justin Fargas combining for 108 more. Say this for JR: he did have the occasional moment of fourth-quarter magic in 2009, as his 10-yard touchdown to Chaz Schilens was the winning margin.

Week 16: Inconsistency, thy name is Raider; a 23-9 road loss to the Browns despite 333 yards (and 3 picks) in the air from Frye. It's the one time in 2009 that the offense has a clear yardage advantage over the opponent in a loss. I like my chances in this game if a low-pick guy like Garcia is in for Frye, but a 14-point road loss in a game where the opposing running back grinds the clock on you is a lot to ask from a QB change.

Week 17: JR relieves Frye in the second half of a 21-13 home loss to the playoff-bound Ravens, and goes 9 of 14 for 102 with two turnovers to Frye's 18 of 25 for 180 and a touchdown. Willis McGahee goes for 167 yards and 3 touchdowns as the Raider run defense ends the season in disarray, with the Ravens going for 250 yards on the ground in total.

So in the final analysis, the answer is no. The Raiders would have gone from 5-11 to 8-8, with a fade at the finish from 8-6 to miss. By the sad standards of this franchise in the post-Gruden era, it would have been the best year in the better part of a decade, and would have meant that Cable would have spent his off-season not twisting in the wind. Especially after Schilens returned, the wideouts actually resembled an offense, though I wouldn't give you a quarter for the future production of first round bust Darius Heyward-Bey.

But on the plus side, thanks to his ridiculous contract and the team's continuing interest in pouring good time after bad, JR will return in 2010, albeit probably in a backup role to Gradkowski, or Frye, or whoever else wants to show up and not be horrific. At least he's still got his bling.


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