One Step Away

With the signing of nomad QB Jeff Garcia, the Raiders continue their 21st-century tradition of sucking up the wretched remains of Niner Nation. It's Garcia's fifth team (phew!) since leaving the Bay Area (Cleveland, Detroit, Philly, Tampa), and while he's 39 and only signed for a year, it's not like you can't imagine him not getting the job away from JaMarcus Russell.

Seeing how it's the Raiders, it doesn't really matter, because it's not like they are in the NFL...

But it does open up the possibility of something we're all hoping for here in Blogfrica, which is Terrell Owens eventually circling the drain (what, you really think that Buffalo will be his final stop?) and winding up reunited with him in Silver and Black.

If and when that happens, expect more tickets to be sold to the press conference than the games...

Dark Drop: Do the Right Thing

A fine Raiders site asked me to contribute a little something something, so I spend 500+ words trying to get Brother Bush paid. Hell, maybe Eagles Fan will take up a collection. But seriously, who has contributed more to the run: Michael Bush or LJ Smith?

Because You Need Tom Cable Coming Right At You

The NFL will experiment by offering a game next month in 3D in theaters, but the technology may be eventually ticketed for in-home viewing. The Dec. 4 presentation will air a live feed of the Thursday night San Diego vs. Oakland game, available only to "invited guests."

I hear LaDanian Tomlinson is still quick in 3-D. Reality, not so much.

Epic Drop: Top 10 next steps for your Oakland Raiders

Today's list is only slightly less crazy than the things that actually go on over there. I've had the, um, pleasure of being at two different Raider games in person, and the secret is that their fans are drunk on whiskey, not beer... much of it smuggled in via flasks and prosthetic limbs.

No, I'm not kidding.

NFL Roundup: How 'bout them Cowboys?

There's pleasant, there's fun, there's riotously enjoyable, and then there's the Cowboys getting absolutely dominated in a game they were supposed to win going away... and picking the game correctly to boot.

Oh, and Jerry Jones? Excellent use of the trade deadline, sir. Your acquisition of Roy Williams,, and the immediate long-term contract that you signed him to, in a week where he contributed nothing against a breathtakingly bad secondary... truly, sir, you have never occupied a warmer place in my heart.

The simple fact of the Cowboys right now is that there is no part of this team -- even the presumably dominant offensive line -- that can be counted on. Tony Romo was clearly making that group look better then they are (Brad Johnson was sacked five times today by the previously punchless Rams defense). Marion Barber got his 100 yards, but a lot of it was on one run. Felix Jones made that OL look better too -- and he's out for a few more games. The defense got killed on the ground. The secondary wasn't the huge issue here, but only because the Rams were content to play conservative and kill them with Stephen Jackson.

What's next? Well, let's face it... Jones just tried to fix a team with a bad back-up quarterback and secondary with another wideout. He even got him from Matt Millen's old team, to complete the transition. In post-game comments, Jones was blunt in his unhappiness.

He can't release players. And he just spent his Sunday watching a team that fired its coach on its bye week come back with two unexpected wins against presumably better clubs. Everyone also knows that Wade Phillips is on a Win Or Else leash after the past two playoff washouts. Finally, thanks to the Giants surviving the Niners today, they are two games back in the division, and in real trouble for making the playoffs.

Would Jones fire the coach? Will Romo come back next week at home against the Bucs, even if it's not a very good idea? Will Owens melt down? Is someone (Bill Cowher) getting a phone call with a Name Your Price offer?

Honestly, there's nothing these guys won't try or do. Which is, well, why today was such a gift from Heaven...

> As for the Rams... well, heck. They've won two in a row, and they play in a division with the Niners and and Seahawks. Start thinking playoffs, baby!

> Just when you thought the AFC was getting back to normal... the Colts go to Green Bay and played abysmal football, the Chargers get worked in Buffalo with LaDanian Tomlinson looking spent, Miami returning to seed at home against a presumably reeling Ravens team, the Raiders taking out the Jets in overtime... yeesh.

> So all hail your Titan Overlords, the Last Unbeaten Team, and the club that no one outside of Tennessee really and truly believes in. Maybe we should, given that they've got a dominant defense and some really good work going on in the running game -- they carried the ball 40 times for 332 yards today, albeit against the I-AA Chiefs. People call Kerry Collins a game manager, but he's more than that, given the strength of his arm and the fact that he's won some playoff games and gone to a Super Bowl.

But still, it's hard to shake the idea that some club is going to put together a good game and show all of the reasons why no one thought the Titans were going to go to the playoffs this year, let alone have a three-game lead in the division. Next week at home against the Colts should be Highly Interesting.

> By the box score, today's 29-17 Giants win over the Niners was by the book and easy; the only reason the Niners were even in the game was their second straight week with a blocked field goal returned for a touchdown. But having watched most of the game today, I saw something different.

Shh... you remember Old Eli, the guy who made bad reads and gave the other team a lot of chances to make interceptions? He's back....

The Giants won this game because the Niners are, make no mistake, a terrible team. The defense did the job on Frank Gore (11 carries for 11 yards), and they ran the ball 29 times for 126 yards and two touchdowns. But Manning was only 16 for 31 despite having all kinds of time and places to throw to, and this game was close until JT O'Sullivan made sure it wasn't. The NFC East is wide open, people.

> Continuing the Winless Dream at home today were your Cincinnati Bengals. How bad is this team? Cedric Benson qualified as the Bright Spot. They didn't sack Ben Roethlisberger, and everyone gets to sack him. They gave up 120 yards rushing to Mewelde Moore. Their fans are selling the tickets as fast as they can.

So, um... what does Marvin Lewis have to do to get fired?

> The wackiest game of the day might have been in Chicago, where the Bears rode their No Boring Outcome defense to a 48-41 win over the Vikings. This game might have single-handedly saved the year for a guy in my points league, who had Bernard Berrian (81 yards and a touch), Adrian Peterson (130 combined yards and 2 touchdowns), Greg Olsen (74 and a touch) and the Chicago defense (3 touchdowns, 2 sacks and 4 picks countered by 41 points allowed). Not exactly what anyone expected, really.

In between all of that was the continuing emergence of Kyle Orton, who tossed up another 283 yards, 2 touchdowns and no turnover game. If anyone has ever seen a previously terrible quarterback become reasonable this quickly... well, I can't remember it.

> If picking games in the NFC South were a fight, it would have been stopped by now on cuts. At least the Bucs were able to take out the awful, awful Seabags; it feels like the first right call that I've made in that division this year.

As for the Saints' um, effort in Carolina... well. at least their next game on the road is in London against the Chargers. So both teams can not show up for that one...

> The late game here in the Man Cave was the Raiders taking out the Jets in overtime, in a game that should have had Jets Fan tearing his hair out. On a day where they got 159 yards (!) from Thomas Jones, Brett Favre went back to terrible, with 2 back-breaking picks and bad accuracy (21 of 38). The Raiders took away the Jet wideouts (Laverneous Coles had 4 catches for 51 yards, while Jerricho Cotchery was made complete invisible with 1 catch for no yards by Nnamdi Asommugha).

But the really notable thing to me in this game was how the Raiders won it; it will tell you that they aren't going to win very often. With three minutes let in regulation, the home team went ahead on a 37-yard Sebastian Janikowski field goal. On the next drive, the Raiders defense allowed Favre to escape pressure for a miracle conversion, and failed to make the plays (i.e., dropping interceptions) that would have prevented a tying Jay Feely 52 yarder.

Oh, and they also did that irritating Ice The Kicker thing, on a Feely miss. Can someone please, for the love of football, stop this already?

In overtime, JeMarcus Russell finally made a play to Zach Miller (like all bad QBs, he over-relies on the tight end). Three downs from there, after some remarkably conservative playcalling given that they were only on the Jets 40, the Raiders send Janikowski out to make a 57 yarder. Miraculously, he does it for the win. Had he missed, you have to think the Jets would have been able to move the ball 15 to 20 yards for the win from there, but never mind. It's not like you keep the coaching job in Raider Land from your intellect.

Jets Fan, you just lost a game to a team with a special needs coach. Sure hope that you don't need this game later...

Five Quick Questions For Al Davis

> Who, exactly, do you expect to want to coach your team, given your track record of, um, "support"?

> Do you remember a young fellow by the name of Shanahan? About twenty years ago, you stiffed him out of money, it didn't work out so well for you? No, didn't think so.

> You do realize that the team before Lane Kiffin wasn't, you know, really in the NFL at all? I get that he wasn't exactly leading a world-beater... but, um, jeez.

> "Professional liar"? Well, um, OK then. How much do you enjoy lawsuits, really?

> Thanks to, well, your own actions about twenty years ago, you do know that there's a whole mechanism in place to make sure that coaches get paid when batshit owners try to welch? No, again, didn't think so...

The Raiders Need An Intervention

I'm going to try to speak delicately here, because Lord knows there just isn't enough of that in Blogfrica, and after taking some shots at Vince Young last week, I'm still a little gunshy. (Did you know that criticizing VY meant you were a racist? I didn't either. The dear fellow will be safe from me for the rest of his life, especially as it looks like that might not be long or involve a lot of football. Anyway, moving on...)

Word out of Oakland is that despite today's physical thumping of the I-AA Chiefs, Raiders head coach Lane Kiffin might be looking for work in the morning.

Given that the team now resembles an NFL football team at times, and has a genuinely exciting rookie in running back Darren McFadden (164 yards today), you might think this, um, makes not a whit of sense.

You would also not have been paying attention to most of the last decade of Raider Football.

Al Davis runs this franchise, as he has for damn nearly its entire existence. He will also be 80 years old on July 4 of next year. Now, I can respect the desire of a man to spend his golden years trying to make everyone around him long for death's sweet embrace first; it's a perverse kind of game, but you have to respect it.

However, it might be nice if it were backed up with any kind, of, you know, plan.

The Raiders have spent most of the decade trying to win with quarterbacks that look like they are big enough to withstand any pass rush, and throw the ball through a car wash without it getting wet. (This would describe Andrew Walter and Jemarcus Russell.)

When that hasn't worked, since most of these guys have been unable to evade any kind of pass rush, they've gone for scamper types like Josh McNown or Marques Tuiasosopo... rather than have, say, a Rich Gannon type that might be able to, you know, complete the ball accurately and resemble something that another team might hire.

They've bought and overbought on speed wideouts that can't actually play. James Jett was the prototype, and he's been duplicated with Drew Carter and Javon Walker. Needless to say, no one is making anyone forget Tim Brown. Or even the later years of Jerry Rice.

Since losing the Super Bowl to prodigal son Jon Gruden, the Raiders have gone 18-62 (!). This, despite having the draft picks that the Bucs gave up to get Gruden, not to mention the high picks the Raiders earned on their own with their spectacular craptitude.

And rather than give Kiffin the keys to the car, they are going to decide to turn back the clock and try the same old thing with Al.

Now, honestly, Raider folks... we have the technology to make this all much better. Just confine Al to a few places -- you know, for his safety, since those NFL bastards are clearly trying to have him killed -- where you can manage the screens he watches. Let "The Truman Show" be your guide, and have him spend his last few years thinking the Raiders are still an NFL franchise.

Meanwhile, you can actually pick players that resemble guys who can succeed in the NFL, and the NFL can have 32 teams that operate in reality. Everybody wins!

Epic Drop: Top 10 Reasons Why The NFL Keeps Putting The Raiders On Opening Night

Your link is here, and it's becoming the opening weekend equivalent of the Lions appearing on Thanksgiving -- national exposure for no good reason, just to ensure that more people can see the team in question as they suck.

I'd say more about it, but I think I'd rather go to bed. The Raiders are, really, just that bad...

Epic Drop: Top 10 Other Things That Could Work Out For The Raiders

The list is here, and the amazement that I feel from that analysis remains... completely off the charts. This made Joe Morgan look like a Mensa member.

Crown His Ass

Item:

Dennis Green, Unemployed Coach, refuses interview with the Oakland Raiders, on the grounds that Al Davis knows him well enough already.

Fact:

Dennis Green's last 4 years in the NFL: 5-10, 6-10, 5-11, 5-11.

Conclusion:

HE IS WHAT WE THOUGHT HE WAS!

Update -- Raiders to hire James Lofton. Guess they knew enough about Dennis Green.

(Hat tip: Philvis)