Greyson Gunheim

Nice - Gunheim records the Raiders' first sack of the day and puts the nail in the Bucs' coffin. It was a coverage sack. Fitting, as the Raiders sans Nnamdi put together a brilliant pass defense to shut down Bryant and Gruden's aerial attack.

So the offseason has begun, but we'll spend more time celebrating this win and on the Jammy fur watch than we will beginning speculation over next year's coach. Johnny and I figure we'll see a silver - or maybe orangish - fur vest during the JaMarcus press briefing.

Real Football

The only barf this week is over my fantasy team, as the Raiders win in commanding fashion and the Forty-Niners pull it out against their main rival.

JaMarcus looked like a real quarterback, and it reminds you that while he is in danger of being a bust, he isn't there yet. I started to wonder about his work ethic, not to mention his sanity as he pointed towards all the "positives" he took from the Patriots debacle. But today's effort is worth something. The Raiders of late are always criticized for mailing it in late in the season, and with Cable appearing to be a lame duck, this is prime mail-it-in time. Instead, JaMarcus had perhaps his finest performance of the season. And - another day, another lush Jammy fur. Today it's brown and looks like a real animal. He's single-handedly taking down the Coliseum's PETA ranking.

And Johnnie Lee...oh, Johnnie Lee. I've been pretty hard on JLH, but justifiably so. Today he was terrific, and even his post-game interview on CBS was endearing. He explained one of his terrible dances as an attempt at "The Carlton from Fresh Prince." His analogy for how it felt getting to the end zone was like an antelope outrunning the cheetahs. Ok, let's keep him. At least for now.

Kiff vs. Herm

Okay, so this is an old clip. But as numerous columnists have pointed out, and Dan and I discussed as it was happening, that 4th and 1 play was retarded. Burning two timeouts and then going for it? Sure, we were absolutely certain that Smith was going to pick up that yard. We hadn't stopped him all day. But when Kirk Morrison and Thomas Howard stuffed him, the jubilation in the room almost woke the baby up from her nap.

As Carl Steward writes, Kiffin turned it loose in the fourth quarter. When Miller made that 28 yard catch-and-run, Dan turned and said, "That's exactly what Miller should be doing." And Daunte unleashed that strike to JP, followed by Huggy Jr's TD, and it was on.

And the streak is over. I just hope Cam Inman hasn't jinxed us.

Oh, speaking of jinxes, as Dan wrote yesterday, we both picked the Quiefs to win. We firmly believe this reverse-jinx helped the Raiders get over the hump, mostly because we're insane. But anyway, I'm not sure what to do this week, since I'll actually be in the House. I'm thinking I'll do like Joe Theisman used to do on espn.com, where he'd abstain from picking the Sunday Night game he was calling. Not sure why he did that, like it would influence who his predictable, boring comentary would favor. But I'm feeling good about the Raiders--I mean really, actually positive about them--for the first time in like 4 years. All of Norv's wins (except for the Denver Snow Game) and Art's wins felt like relief more than progress. But this win shows me that Kiffin knows what he's doing.