Did the Ravens Get Another Bye?

Normally this would qualify Mike Preston of the Baltimore Sun for Hater of the Week status. But I'm back to being discouraged, and pretty much everything the guy wrote is true. This is brutal:

Didn't the Raiders look like a team out of NFL Europe? To the Ravens' credit, they did exactly what they're supposed to do against bad teams. They kicked the Raiders around physically and sent them back home.

It's hard to evaluate the Ravens' performance because everything starts with this qualifier: It was against the Raiders. Oakland has no offensive line. The Raiders' coverage units on special teams were pathetic, and their defense tried to play man-to-man in the secondary with no pass rush.

He goes on to destroy the "West Coast Team Playing at 10:00amPT in the East" excuse with this:

But there is no excuse for the Raiders. They would stink up the field anywhere in the world at any time.

(h/t: Jerry Mac)