Realizing our doubts

Johnny texts me to say, "Our offense is awful. Still."

Yep, it looks that way on TV, too. The one positive thing I can say is that when new center Veldheer snapped it over Campbell's head, he scooped it up and ran for 15 yards (i.e., back to the line of scrimmage) to put us in FG position. So I suppose it could have been worse?

If it weren't for the refs, we'd be in trouble. But just as I write that, Branch gets flagged for PI to erase a 3-and-out and Stanford Routt, our highly-paid-and-therefore-starting CB, gets smoked for a 60-yard TD. Stanford is right, he hasn't changed a bit. He looks awful. Still.

That's more like it!

Third and long, Wimbley gets around the corner and sacks Young, forcing a fumble that's picked up by Seymour. The drive starts on the Tennessee 34.

D'oh! Campbell sacked on a blitz. Let's cash in, Raiders.

"Shaky start"

The offense didn't look great at first glance. So let's see how the defense does.

Tyvon Branch is my pick for breakout player, good to see he made the play on special teams.

"Michael Huff was out of position." First play is an option and Vince Young almost broke it. Not a great start.

Here we go

One question was whether the return game would be any good. And we fumbled the opening kickoff (but recovered). Figurs.

DMC to carry the load?

Will DHB show up?

Veldheer at center?

Is Campbell the man?

Oops...he looked JaMarcus-esque stepping away from center assuming a penalty that wasn't there.

Am I the only person who thought of Al Davis when I read this?

I've compared Al, in his later career (especially since 2002) to Simon Bolivar in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's The General in his Labyrinth. Twice, actually.

So maybe it's not a surprise that as I was reading Jeffrey Goldberg's interview with Fidel Castro that I thought about Al again.

Mainly it was this passage:

A frail and aged Fidel stood to greet us. He was wearing a red shirt, sweatpants, and black New Balance sneakers. The room was crowded with officials and family: His wife, Dalia, and son Antonio, as well as an Interior Ministry general, a translator, a doctor and several bodyguards, all of whom appeared to have been recruited from the Cuban national wrestling team. Two of these bodyguards held Castro at the elbow.

Lowell Cohn, who wrote over the weekend about Al lashing out at Adam Schefter for connecting the Raiders with Matt Leinert--and who writes better about Al Davis than anyone--wrote this after the infamous overhead projector press conference:

And when the whole shebang was over and the reporters left, Davis sat at the table on the stage and didn’t leave, didn’t leave until every reporter had departed. I know why. I think I do. He has trouble walking, says it’s nothing serious, just a bum quad. Maybe. I believe he wanted everyone out so we would not see him depart — either struggle to his feet or be wheeled out.

The parallels between the two men are fascinating--and yes, obviously one is a dictator and one owns a football team, so let's not insult each other's intelligence and get that out of the way up front. But these men are or were giants in their fields, now aging, struggling to hold onto their power, and, I don't know, make one last splash before they check out. They came to power at roughly the same time; they both were thorns in the sides of their bigger, more powerful neighbors who never gave up, always stayed defiant, and now seem to be caring about their legacies and not quite knowing how to manage it.

Observations

With preseason finally over and unofficial cuts being listed by both Jerry and Vito, just want to jot down some observations. Actually, Raiders.com has the official cuts here.

One guy I was sorry not to see on the cut list is Jeremy Ware, a 7th round CB out of Michigan State. Like JLH his rookie season, this is the guy I'm picking on this year. Maybe they had to keep him with Walter McFadden - who looked rather good, by the way - injured. But he looked lost out there every play I saw.

On the plus side in the defensive backfield, I may be ordering a Tyvon Branch jersey by the end of the year. He looks outstanding. And the Al Davis "Pay him and the plays will come" approach may have worked with Stanford Routt, who looks a lot better and makes me less cynical about his grabbing the starting job from CJ based on pay level.

O Line - I'm worried about our tackles, who were destroyed vs. San Francisco. Only good thing I can say about that is that SF is my fantasy defense. It looks like Veldheer is officially a center, with Chris Morris being cut today and Khalif Barnes moving to LT in the Seattle game.

Run D - not quite as worried - yet - as the preseason might indicate. Seemed to me that most big runs were headed straight at Desmond Bryant while Seymour rested. Tommy Kelly remains wildly inconsistent, sometimes dominant, sometimes dominated. Will be interesting to see what they are doing with Trevor Scott, having played him at DE during the Seattle game. Maybe Groves or Howard gets more playing time at LB? With one transaction yet to be announced, maybe Howard is on the block.

WRs - the Raiders seem to have kept a lot of them, including Figurs, JLH, and Nick Miller. But with Schilens always hurt, this seems to be a quantity-not-quality situation to fill in for him. TJ Houshmandzadeh was released in Seattle, which would be a nice fit. It was good to hear DHB made a great catch in the final preseason game, so hopefully this carries over to the regular season.

And here's hoping McFadden breaks out this year. One comment by Jason Campbell convinced me to draft him in fantasy football. Paraphrasing, but Campbell said he was truly amazed at what a natural receiver he is. With so few options at WR, I can see DMC being used in a lot of ways in the passing game.

Raiders in New Haven

My daughter started school last week, and there was a note on vaccinations and other health stuff, signed by the president of the Board of Education and the Acting Director of Public Health, Dr. Chisara N. Asomugha.

The form's a little dated, because she is now the Community Services Administrator for the City of New Haven.

She's also permanent CLOAK OF IMMORTALITY Man Crush Nnamdi Asomugha's big sister.

I confirmed this when I read this SI profile from last year on Nnamdi, "A Name Worth Knowing."

"Nnamdi struggled at times to fit in among a household of academic achievers. Chisara, the oldest of the children, is a pediatrician with an M.D. from Duke and a master's in public health from North Carolina; she's a finalist for a White House fellowship, to be announced later this month. His younger sister, Udodirim, has a master's in public health from Michigan, and Chijioke received his M.B.A. from Columbia this spring."

That's a serious family right there.