Replacement Officials and the NFL: Amazing, Lame, Epic Failures.

What a game yesterday.  I understand that NFL is in business negotiations right now, and using Scab Officials is necessary to teach the regular officials to bow down.  Screws the fans though, and if you hear/see some player quotes from the Green Bay Packers - then you know that some players feel screwed also.  Our own President weighed in on it - and you would think he would be able at some point to spur these NFL assholes into giving the Officials some damn Vacation Time and some fucking health benefits.

The NFL will simply deal with this for now, maybe in the hopes that the Replacements will learn under fire and in 3 - 4 weeks some will be ready to permanently replace some of the dudes on strike.  That happens (Replacements being kept) and all of a sudden the League will have a watered-down fraternity of Officials and a better bargaining position.

I feel for Green Bay, but they're the one's that coughed up 8 sacks in the first half and only led Seattle by 5 measly ass points at the end of the game.    I mean damn, the Pack had the ball with 2 minutes left and the lead, then tried to fumble the ball away on first down. Failing at that, they ended up punting from their own 5.  They reaped what they sowed - even though anyone and everyone with eyeballs that are functional could tell that TD "catch" was total bullshit. It was an interception.

And of course the replay decision was faulty.  Much like the "Tuck Rule", unheard of until the Raiders played the Patriots in the the AFC Championship - yesterday, a blatant pass interference call cannot be overturned by replay - even though the NFL replays and reviews ALL Touchdowns - and the receiver get's a reception because it was simultaneously caught.  What?  WTF?  The freaking wide receiver (Golden Tate - "Golden"?  Really?) was draped over the back of the DB (M.D. Jennings) who clearly intercepted the damn ball. 

Back in the day the Raiders got robbed - nay:  assraped in a Championship game (and that call was made by "Real Officials")  - so regular season game 3 doesn't quite hold the same signifigance, but the absurdity of the calls are quite similar - replacement officials or not - because the NFL is backing both of those horribly shitty calls.  Amazing.

I love how one official signalled Touch Back and the other signalled Touchdown - and they went the TD signalling asshole 10 mother-loving minutes later.  They had to drag 11 Green Bay players back out onto the field to defend the extra point.  Lame. 

I like how the NFL was like: "Uh, Yeah...  Call was messed up, they should have called P.I., but they didn't and so that was a simultaneous catch, so yeah...  TD.  Suck it Packers".  Epic Fail.


Sllaacs

And the Raiders Win!

Quite the game, Sunday.  Quite the game indeed.  Really a must-win game at this point in the season and despite Ben Rothlisberger going unchecked throughout - the Raiders win the stat that matters the most in Football - Turnover Ratio.  4 bumbles by the fumbling Steelers, two of which Oakland Recovered.

As expected, Rothlisberger had a great game, and as hoped for by all Raiders fans Carson Palmer also had a great game - with an early pick the only blemish on his game performance.

With the return of Denarius Moore the loss of DHB may not be a killer, but having both of those guys in the lineup is going to look good with the way Palmer played against the Steelers and really the way the Raiders QB should play all season.  Darren McFadden looks fit as expected, so the Raiders offense should at least be as good as it was last year, unfortunately the Defense is likely to be as bad as it was last year, which leads me to expect a loss next week against Denver. 

Dennis Allen is a former Defensive Coordinator for Denver and would seem to have an edge that other teams may not have against the 0-2 Broncos this season, but with Peyton Manning throwing, and both defenses prone to cough up an assload of yardage, this game is likely to be high scoring.

Besides, I only expect the Raiders to go 1-7 for the first half - leading to Allen's ouster, so this is a game that Oakland will have to lose.


- Sllaacs

Carson Palmer, FTW

I found out from Dan via text message about an hour ago. Yes, we're all excited here. Ray Ratto has an interesting first take on the trade:

But what it absolutely means is this: Hue Jackson is now the general manager of the Oakland Raiders, the living modern-day embodiment of the man who hired him. He went from offensive coordinator to head coach to the master of the football operations department in nine months, a rise so meteoric that even Al in the afterlife must find that a bit breathtaking.

And then my favorite line:

Even Joseph Stalin cooled his heels for two years before throwing his elbows around.

We'll have more reactions as they come in. But I'll tell you what, Al loved players from USC, and he loved Heisman Trophy winners. It's on.

Rick Reilly, all-time great chickenshit

This is old, I know. But I work, and there's a baby in the house and I've also been a little busy worrying about who will back up Kyle Boller now that Jason Campbell's collar bone is broken.

But thank Christ for Rick Reilly, who took it upon himself last week to reflect HONESTLY on the legacy of Al Davis.

You know how I know how I know Reilly's column is lazy? Because he quotes 8 outside sources in his column and links to zero of them. That's this many:



You get the idea. Anyway, he sets up a straw man, the idea that everyone who has written an obit about Davis glossed over the darker areas.

As you pass the casket at Maori funerals in New Zealand, you are encouraged to speak frankly to the dead man, sometimes even mentioning his faults, right out loud.

With all due respect to his life and legacy, I think we need a funeral like that for recently departed Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis -- a man I covered since I was 25.

It's white of him to educate us about the religious practices of the Maori. Since he doesn't link to where he got this information, I googled "Maori funeral rites and got this from wikipedia:

• Tangihanga or funeral rites may take two or three days. The deceased lies in state, usually in an open coffin flanked by female relatives dressed in black, their heads sometimes wreathed in kawakawa leaves, who take few and short breaks. During the day, visitors come, sometimes from great distances despite only a distant relationship, to address the deceased. They may speak frankly of his or her faults as well as virtues, but singing and joking are also appropriate. Free expression of grief by both men and women is encouraged. Traditional beliefs may be invoked, and the deceased told to return to the ancestral homeland, Hawaiki, by way of te rerenga wairua, the spirits' journey. The close kin or kiri mate ("dead skin") may not speak. On the last night, the pō whakamutunga (night of ending), the mourners hold a vigil and at sunrise the coffin is closed, before a church or marae funeral service and/or graveside interment ceremony, invariably Christian. It is traditional for mourners to wash their hands in water and sprinkle some on their heads before leaving a cemetery. After the burial rites are completed, a feast is traditionally served. Mourners are expected to provide koha or gifts towards the meal. After the burial, the home of the deceased and the place they died are ritually cleansed with karakia (prayers or incantations) and desanctified with food and drink, in a ceremony called takahi whare, trampling the house. That night, the pō whakangahau (night of entertainment) is a night of relaxation and rest. The widow or widower is not left alone for several nights following.
• During the following year, the kinfolk of a prominent deceased person will visit other marae, "bringing the death" (kawe mate) to them. They carry pictures of the person on to the marae.
• Unveilings of headstones (hura kōwhatu) are usually held about a year after a death, often on a public holiday to accommodate visitors who could not get to the tangihanga. The dead are remembered and more grief expressed.

Notice he left out the parts about the graveside internment ceremony (invariably Christian, totally appropriate for a recently-deceased Jew like Al Davis). This is instructive, because he spends the rest of the column destroying his straw man with Honesty by cherry-picking quotes from obituaries. Let's take a look at just one of those, "Raiders' Al Davis, sport's ultimate bad guy, will be missed" a 9-year old pre-Superbowl column by Bill Plaschke (thanks again, google). 

Actually, take a minute or two and read the whole column. It's a good lesson in how to write a balanced, nuanced take on a complicated man's life. Anyway, his column alternates something good with something not-so-good. Let's take a look at the passage Reilly quotes:

It would be wonderful if today could be a tribute to the brains behind the AFL-NFL merger, the curator of the downfield passing game, the first football executive to hire both a Latino and an African American head coach, the only owner whose successor probably will be a woman.

Notice first what he left off all the non-bolded text. But anyway, the next sentence:

But it's hard to hand over your heart to a guy who used to make his equipment man fall to his knees and clean his shoes when he entered the locker room.

Wait, that sounds familiar. Where have I read that before? Oh, unattributed, in Rick Reilly's HONEST Maori eulogy.

Yet after practices, Davis would routinely throw a towel down on the locker room floor and wait for somebody to clean his shoes. No please, no thank you. Just do it, baby. And grown men would.

Looking at Plashcke's obituary now, I'd like to quote at length another passage.

In the end, this intimidation changed a league, broke down barriers and created a unique sports culture, a group simply known as Raider Fan. This is a name given to any of thousands of spectators — many from Los Angeles — who embrace the sort of havoc in the stands that Davis' team attempts on the field.

What will happen to Raider Fan now? What if Davis' heirs sell the team to someone who will attempt to move them back to Los Angeles' new NFL stadium?

For that to happen, the team must first change the silver and black colors that are so popular among gang members. And second, well, they might as well change the name.

Contrast this with Reilly's Maori Funeral Address.

Yes, Al Davis "was what all Raiders fans identified with" (SBNation.com).

And the rest of the league has had to live with them ever since. A Raiders jersey or jacket became gang uniform in Oakland and L.A. "The Black Hole" at Oakland games is about as disgusting a place as you can find. YouTube is lousy with guys in Raiders jerseys throwing haymakers. Now, there's talk that Davis' oldest son, Mark, may sell the Raiders to Philip Anschutz, who would move the team to Los Angeles. After what happened at Dodgers Stadium this year, you want to bring a thug element that would make Dodgers fans look like Our Gang? Better barricade I-5.

I'm not even going to address the racial coding of "gang uniform" and "thug element." It's too easy and once you bring it up, people get all defensive, because no white person anywhere in the United States is ever racist. And never mind that youtube is also lousy with Eagles fans and Broncos fans and Jets fans throwing haymakers at people. So let's just look at the Plaschke quote next to the Reilly quote and draw our own conclusions.

Oh fuck it. I'd accuse Reilly of plagiarism but I honestly don't think he's smart enough to plagiarize. What he is is Lazy. And chickenshit. He could have written a column where he just flat-out called Al Davis an asshole. Like Jeremy Stahl in Slate's "Al Davis, all-time great asshole."

But Reilly doesn't have the balls. So he plays anthropologist, and libels a bunch fans, and takes cheap shots.

Seabass, FTW.

Sloppy 1st half, but the Defense looks good. We're 16-3 on Janikowski's 63 yard Field goal to end the half. Ties the record held by Tom Dempsey and Jason Elam.

Also, I'm the on the East Coast and it's after midnight and I don't even care. I'm pumped.

Also, I've been transcribing the ESPN people.

"When you're a FOOTBALL player in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, you gotta know the proper way to handle the FOOTBALL...He's a FOOTBALL coach in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, andOHBYTHEWAY, when you're playing FOOTBALL in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE..."

Hater of the Week: Donald Rumsfeld

There are known unknowns, unknown knowns, and unknown unknowns. And then there's war criminal and Hater of the Week, Donald Rumsfeld:

"Nobody could support the Raiders. They're evil."

So there's North Korea, Iraq, Iran, and Oakland. Awesome.
(h/t Jerry)

How NOT to capitalize on the good feelings after a 3-game winning streak

So here come the Raiders, hottest team in the league, winners of three straight. Sunday's game was exhilarating to be sure. But after 7 years, Raiders fans are like abused spouses, always looking away, unsure and untrusting, wondering if this time, the counseling and AA will finally work, or if something will snap and we're back to the screaming and the beating and the misery.

How little we trust this team can be illustrated by this text message transcript from Sunday, as Dan and I watched the game on opposite coasts.

All times Eastern:

Nov 7, 2010 7:15 PM (after the "fumbled" punt by Nick Miller)

John: What the fuck just happened?

Dan: The NFL is a joke. Rigged.

Dan: These Refs should not get a game check this week.

Dan: God Campbell sucks.

John: Why is it always us?

Dan: I turned it off. Refs obviously preordained this one.

John: Seymour made a huge play.

Nov 7, 2010 7:49 PM

John: Ford!

John: OT!!!

Dan: Waiting to see how they will take this away. My nerves are shot.

John: LOL

John: Ford

Nov 7, 2010 8:01 PM

Dan: Can we declare them for real? I need an anxiety pill.

We all needed an anxiety pill. Even Monday and Tuesday, in the afterglow of the biggest win since the AFC Championship Game against Tennessee in 2002, with fawning national coverage, I kept waiting for something stupid to happen.

And today, it finally did. Via Jerry comes this article by Steve Corkran.

The question is not why would Al Davis want Jason Campbell to stay the starting quarterback. That's not an indefensible position. He's won three in a row, and overcame an awful first half to win the game Sunday. What I don't understand is why the fuck would Al send his simpering underlings to anonymously insist that Al Davis wants Campbell to start.

Is Al not getting enough credit? Jesus Christ, even Mel Kiper (paid access only) wrote, "But Davis perhaps didn't get enough credit." He then goes on to give Davis credit for drafting good players and hiring Hue Jackson.

This would make sense if we were in the middle of another losing season. But we're not. The Raiders are a national feel-good story. They just had a sellout game, where the crowd played a huge role in the victory, causing false starts and delay-of-game penalties.

And this is how they're rewarded, with "sources inside and outside the organization" saying, "Mr. Davis likes what Jason has done the past month and doesn't see the need to change when things are going well" and "He thinks Jason is a classic fit for the Raiders style of play."

Again with the classic style of play. If "Just Win, Baby" means anything at all, Al will his coaches and his players play, grow some self confidence, and shut the fuck up.

This why suck, Part 789

Jerry Mac, writing about why the Raiders didn't draft Larry Fitzgerald:

At the time, the Raiders felt pretty good about their receiving corps of Jerry Porter, Ronald Curry and Doug Gabriel. The following year, they would bring in Randy Moss.

Since that 2005 season, Fitzgerald has more receptions than any receivcer in the NFL (475) for 6,413 yards and 52 touchdowns. The Raiders recieving leaders during that span _ Jerry Porter, Ronald Curry (in 2006 and 2007), Johnnie Lee Higgins and Louis Murphy, combined for 249 receptions, 3,273 yards and 18 touchdowns.

But while Fitzgerald was available and brought in for a visit, it was purely for show. They never considered drafting him because he didn’t have a fast enough time in the 40-yard dash. Davis’ favorite receiver, I’ve been told by was Roy Williams out of Texas. (emphasis added)

Yes, this Roy Williams. I will now mix a qualuude-and-drano cocktail.

Gradkowski!

So Bruce Almighty is the starter, and there are a couple of competing views by the ANG newsguys.

Writing of Hue Jackson's comment that it was his idea put Bruce in on Sunday, Cam Inman says Jackson is undermining Cable's authority, and it's only a matter of time before he replaces Cable as head coach.

Jerry Mac has a different take. He writes that Cable, in naming Bruce the starter, is showing being decisive, and notices his lack of lip-service to Al Davis in the decision.

Jerry writes:

Seems like a major shift that Cable isn’t giving the owner his due on an important decision, or offering up a glowing endorsement of their conversations. What makes this more interesting is that Jackson, Davis’ hand-picked offensive coordinator, said he was the one who suggested the quarterback switch in the first place.

Jackson, of course, mentioned "Coach Davis" when he discussed the decision to bench Campbell in favor of Gradkowski.

So what's going on? Is Jackson undermining Cable? Or is he providing cover for the decision? Al is on record as saying Campbell reminds him of Jim Plunkett. If Jackson is Davis' hand-picked guy, maybe it makes sense for Cable to have him take credit for the decision, since he has a latitude that Cable might not necessarily have.

It seems to me that Jackson can't really undermine Cable's authority, since everyone knows Raiders head coaches don't really have any authority to undermine. All Jackson said is that it was his idea; Cable made the ultimate decision. It seems like they're playing good cop/bad cop with Davis.

It makes sense that if the Raiders start losing, Cable gets fired. He should be. But if they start winning, who knows what will happen. Al is weird enough to do anything.

QB Controversy

Prince - Controversy
Uploaded by Master_System. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

Per Jerry Mac, Tom Cable has declared Alameda a "Controversy-free zone." A lot of it is typical Raiders weirdness, but my feeling is that what is going on is Cable trying to convince Al to let him start Gradkowski.

And if "Just Win, Baby" is anything more than an empty slogan, Gradkowski will start until he gets hurt or stops winning. Nothing against Campbell, but the turnaround was too stark on Sunday.

Ouch

From Jerry McDonald's latest post:

How is it possible the Raiders could be overconfident? In a way they’re no different from much of the fan base which thought they had a winner and now are willing to sell their beloved team for a nickel after a bad opener.

Speaking for the CLOAK, I'm not sure we thought we had a "winner," so much as we were encouraged that the problems we've been experiencing over the last 7 years--Commitment to press-bashing, no pass rush, bum offensive line play, bad tackling in the run defense--were at least being dealt with in a manner befitting a professional organization. Sunday's game was a debacle, no different from any of the many debacles we've experienced over that time period.

Jerry's readers are dedicated, though, and this line is like a shout-out to the most loyal readers, the ones who police the site for "haters."

Official Fox Sports Sleeper Pick for 2010: Your Oakland Raiders?

Ginger Jesus turned me on to this one by posting it on another buddy's wall, and it's one of those things that's so weird it almost qualifies for a Hater of the Week post. Actually, Solomon Wilcots still might get one.

Anyway, Peter Schrager of Fox Sports picks the Raiders to go 10-6, make the playoffs, and shock just about everyone. It's well worth reading, even with the crack about being alone on the bandwagon with a bunch of "freaks with spikes and face-paint on."

Oh, and Wilcots, quoted in the column, compares the Raiders to a bimbo:

“The Raiders are like that pretty girl in the pretty dress," said Wilcots. "Everything looks great. But then she can’t read the darn cue cards.”

That's lame. But hey, the best the CLOAK has been able to muster is an upgrade from "Dumbest Team in America" to "I want to Believe."

Rolando McClain, FTW

JaMarcus Speaks

Jerry Mac does an excellent job breaking down how retarded the Raiders policies are when it comes to dealing with the media. But here's JaMarcus, speaking. Is it me, or does he sound less mumbly and dumb?

Quote of the Day

This guy Hanson can't catch a break except when it comes to his chin. -Lowell Cohn

It's that time of the year

We're heading down the homestretch into the what is usually the most exciting part of the year for our beloved Oakland Raiders, the off season.

With that, several local writers attended a pretty interesting Tom Cable press conference yesterday, with most of them focusing on what he had to say about JaMarcus. It also sounds like Tom Cable is making the case for his job, and putting a lot of the blame on #2.

Gwen Knapp discusses the JaMarcus portion of the interview, goes through all the accusations of violence leveled against Cable, and then wonders at this exchange:

The most revealing moments came when Cable responded to questions about whether he'd received feedback from his boss. He either said he hadn't or simply shook his head. It all sounded and looked very familiar.

Lowell Cohn dwells on Cable's statements about JaMarcus, and says that Cable is calling into question JaMarcus' morality. Not that he's a degenerate or anything, at least off the field, but in football terms. This sentence stuck out:

As I understand it, the coach said the player has abundant talent but instead of nurturing the abundant talent, he has squandered it. This is a moral criticism. It means Russell has not been a right guy. It means he makes bad choices and he is defined by those choices — bust. The moral criticism is especially harsh when you remember the money Russell willingly took without giving effort in return. This is a devastating criticism and it doesn’t come from me. It comes from the player’s own coach.

Cam Inman cuts Russell some slack and calls out Richard Seymour, saying he's been a bust, too. So there's suckage all around, and I'm still pretty convinced that Al needs to go away and let somebody who cares about winning football games more than he cares about lawsuits and he-said, we-said BS. Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas, Dan. Heart, NFL Network

Pulled this little nugget from Jerry Mac's Christmas Day blog post:

– Maybe there is something to this NFL vs. Raiders stuff. Why else would the NFL Network show the “Tuck Rule” game on Christmas Day?

Merry Christmas, Everyone.

Greg Papa, Hero

I didn't hear it, but according to Kristi H, Papa's call of today's game at the end was epic. Here's a screen cap of his Wikipedia entry, as it stands at this moment:

Simpler Times

Lager, that is. I got it at Trader Joe's in honor of Dan's visit to Los Gatos, because according to the can it's hand-crafted in Wisconsin.

Mike Bush is running well, and JaMarcus is offering him Gatorade when he comes off the field after a tough run. Glad to see he's staying involved. Meanwhile, we're enjoying Kristi's text messages about the game.

So far: "Fuck the refs," and something to Dan about "SMALL MILE HIGH DICKS."

Stay Classy, Raiders Fan

A sheriff's deputy in Reno, NV pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from an associate of Joe Francis of "Girls Gone Wild" fame.

Among the items in his bribe?

$3200 in cash and tickets to Raiders games. The judge let him off with a $4000 fine and three years probation. It doesn't say which games he went to, but part of the defense his public defender, Vito de la Cruz made, including bashing the Raiders:

In a light moment, Cruz questioned the estimated value of the Raiders tickets.

"Given the Oakland Raiders success of the last few years, he probably was ill-advised to take those tickets," he said. "I'm not sure those were of any value."

Outstanding. It's now on record in a federal court proceeding the Raiders suck ass.