1st Quarter: Raiders 7 disChargers 0

Wow.

I mean, just wow. Richard Seymour just dominated a series, recording a sack and stuffing LDT on a short run. Then Warren stripped LDT and we recover.

Dominating: 135 yards for us, 17 for them.

FTW.

Here We Go

I really don't know what to think tonight. For the past few weeks I've been the lowest I can remember being heading into a regular season. The Jawbreaker. The debacle against the Saints in the 3rd preseason game. The Seymour public embarrassment. My expectations were low, and were headed lower.

Then the Seymour thing turned around. He's here, he wants to play for the Raiders, he grew up a Raider fan (!?)...and he's going to play tonight. Even if Johnny and Ashley couldn't make it, we have friends over and Kristy has put both the Autumn Wind and the Raiders' theme song on the TV.

So...I'm pumped.

Are the Raiders even playing tonight?

Granted, I'm only casually watching watching Monday Night Countdown, but so far I've the Raiders mentioned exactly one time, and that was as a lead-in for a piece on Ladanian Tomlinson's "comeback."

I'm starting to feel disrespected. And maybe the Raiders have earned it. But you would think that the NFL would have scheduled the Broncos to play the Chargers tonight, because there has been more discussion of them than there has the Raiders.

Drew Bennett: Contrarian

I'll have longer posts throughout the day, but in the meantime, here's ESPN's First Take preview with Kordell Stewart and Drew Bennett.



ESPN really will hire anyone, won't they?

Seymour May Stop Screwing Raider Fans UPDATE: Or Not?

Schefter is reporting tonight that Richard Seymour is en route to Oakland and will play against the Chargers on Monday night. Apparently the Raiders did send the letter and Seymour had the proverbial 3.7 million reasons to go ahead and stop being a baby about the trade.

More good news is that no ridiculous promise not to franchise him was made, increasing the chances that the Raiders will be able to keep him longer than this year. Gwen Knapp's complaints notwithstanding, this is good news for the fan even if it prevents Seymour from buying 10 more luxury cars with all of his loot derived from playing a game.

UPDATE: Spoke too soon. Jerry points out a Boston Herald story that Seymour has filed a grievance through the NFLPA attempting to block the Raiders' ability to force him to report, and thus unravelling the trade. Until he tackles LT for a loss on Monday night, Richard Seymour is on a fast track to Randy Moss status with this Raider fan. No, that does not mean I am going to draft Seymour also in my fantasy league. Ugh.

Slow Start

We had the best of intentions. Live blog the always exciting final preseason game. Somehow the beers and burgers got in the way. Unfortunately, JaMarcus and the starters were out before I got the first burger off the grill.

Not much excitement from the starting offense. And that run defense still doesn't look great. But at least we got a good quote from George Atkinson: "Competitors want to compete." Indeed.

Javon Walker just caught a pass during Gradkowski's final audition. Too bad Gradkowski then fumbled away the ball. So far I think Louis Rankin is my MVP. Big Terd is playing up to his name. And John Bowie is making us all forget about Randy Moss. No wait, he's making us think every opposing WR is Randy Moss.

Members Only?

I noticed something today, when I read--against my better judgment--the last tripe from Rick Reilly. In a column addressing whether or not it's okay to abandon your team, and under what circumstances it's okay to do so, he writes,

Rule 6b. Your owner still wears Members Only jackets. His initials are Al Davis.

Curious, because I can recall exactly three outfits I've ever seen Al Davis wear: White Sweats, black leather Raiders jacket, and a black suit when he needs to dress it up. So I googled "Al Davis Members Only Jacket" and got this, from Jay Mariotti's Fan House column of August 19:

Not that I'd expect anything more from the creature forever embalmed in a Members Only jacket, Al Davis.

Then I did an image of Al Davis, with the "moderate safe search" on. Look at it. Admittedly, this is unscientific, but do you see one picture of Al Davis in a Members Only jacket? Scroll through it. Even the Freddy Krueger picture doesn't show a Members Only jacket. One photo, on the third page of images, shows Al in the 70s, in some kind of awesome, gray wool number with buttoned straps on the shoulders, but that's not a Members Only jacket.

I get what they're saying, that only out of touch old guy's wear Members Only jackets. But I want to ask these two, can you produce one photo of Al Davis wearing a Members Only jacket? And even if you can, in Mariotti's case, does one photo out of thousands constitute enough evidence to level the charge that he is "forever embalmed in a Members Only jacket?"

This is the kind of lazy and stupid reporting that guys like Reilly and Mariotti can get away with, because they're big stars on ESPN. You would never see Lowell Cohn or Ray Ratto or Monte Poole or even Kawakami write something like this, because they know first hand that whatever Al Davis is, a schmuck in a Members Only jacket isn't one of them.

UPDATE: I sent submitted this email, via this form, at espn.com for Rick Reilly:

Hi, I was wondering if you have any visual evidence of Al Davis wearing a Members Only jacket?

http://cloakofimmortality.blogspot.com/2009/09/members-only.html

Thanks, and I'll print any response.

John Sousa

Maybe if both of our readers also send him emails, we'll get a response.