Mark Long Beach

IMO I have Sanders ahead of Green. I liked Green very much, but Sanders was more dominant to me. I never expected to be impressed by a cornerback. But I'm still impressed.

Yeah, the Rooney rule smacks a lot of being PC and I don't like that. However, it IS working. More AA coaching prospects getting interviewed and more AA coaches are getting hired. Remember, all it does is help ensure people get interviews. If they show well at the interview they may get hired. If you can't even get the interview, you surely can't get hired. It's opportunity, folks. That's all it is: just an opportunity to shine. When I look at it from that perspective I don't mind it so much.

I knew Snyder was a jerk, but I didn't know just how far around the bend he is. IMO Ralph is a bit misguided. He doesn't always make the best decisions, but he's not out to screw everyone around him nor try to make a buck at everybody else's expense. Ralph does spend money, just not always wisely (e.g. Dockery, Langston Walker (who at least was a decent RT) etc). That was a great article thanks for pointing it out!

I started it, but quit as it's focused on local fans. It might be a good idea to list who you are targeting in the introduction. Since you've released it on the internet you'll get all kinds of weirdos (and non-locals) like me.

As everyone knows our top picks have essentially bombed out for the last 10 years or so. We have very little game changing talent. High quality players like Lee Evans and Schoebel get paid (and even some not-so high quality players like Kelsey). The problem is we just don't have many people worth paying. Would I like to have kept some players that we let go? Sure, Pat Williams & Greer for example but for the most part I have had no problems with the large amount of players let go. Not many have we missed. We get a few more game changers and some success our payroll will go up.

And Adam Morrison has two rings with the LA Lakers even though he played about 12 minutes for both seasons. It's a team sport, all participants get a ring. Not all contributions are equal, not all ring distributions are equal either.

All too true. But remember, it's mostly frustration and and some schadenfreud speaking. It's also made all the worse because we've struggled for so long, that many who'll still spend the effort to post are those who's passions still run hot (and negatively hot at this point)

Ellison isn't a good fit for a 3-4; he's depth for a 4-3 only; so he's gone. It's possible Youboty stays, but he's more a gamer than a practice guy and he's not hit the field to prove it recently. He's had some nice moments, but wouldn't shock me if he's gone. His chances improve if we don't keep Drayton whom I think we should keep. Maybe Corto sticks at bottom of roster for Special teams. Those last roster spots are crapshoots. I think gone: 7 + (your 8 - maybe youboty) Brohm Not up to NFL speed Stroud Lost a step and not effective enough for that much money. Nelson - a receiving TE that doesn't catch well enough and can't block well enough with major health risks.

I hope he does come here. He's proven, talented and has historically worked well with our Head Coach. Those are some monster advantages right there. He's a much better Pro coach than a college one. He's also a better coordinator than a Head coach. We have a number of other advantages as well. We're early in the head coaches career here (meaning that he's less likely to be fired in a year or two) in a rebuilding phase no less so expectations are low. We've already started the rebuild and have bottomed out so there's nowhere to go but up. Every positive defensive gain will be attributed to him. We're not devoid of talent either. (Although we are poor in the LB ranks and have no depth) That's a lot of positives in our favor.

The dude clearly has the passion for it. Passion coupled with hard work can get you far in life.

Al Davis is an easy guy for me to loathe. So I've been really enjoying all of his consistent screw-ups over the last decade or so. I was starting to worry since the Raiders were looking like they turned the corner and were on their way up. Whew! Situation Normal, All F<ouled> up! The only way I'd have any respect for Al was if he truly did fire Cable for the Domestic violence issues. But Al doesn't sit around, and he's not averse to lawsuits to prevent paying any money. If that truly were the reason he'd have been gone long ago, IMO. I much more believe the coach wouldn't dance exactly to Davis's whims such as the reported conflict over benching of some of the rookies.

Lechler is very well respected by the Raider players and has been around for 10 years in the organization. He knows how Davis will react to him speaking out. As a punter he is actually safer than another position. Not even Al will keep two punters on his team so he can't be buried like Marcus Allen was. He'll be either still there or released. Since is the best person in the NFL at his position, he will not be unemployed long nor for a discount. yup. He also comes across as a stand-up guy even though he's speaking out against the team. (Al Davis) It won't give any other team much qualms about picking him up.

That's my understanding as well. I've only seen him briefly at guard, but he looked good to me. I'll take him, especially since I'd really like to see Hang be our first guy off the bench for the interior. He's smart and pretty decent. Ridiculously better than any of the centers that we've had recently (Preston, Fowler etc). I just want more of a mauling interior so that we can run the ball vs the excellent 3-4's that we face.

You can't be hired as head coach if you aren't even interviewed. More minority candidates are being interviewed and more minority coaches are being hired.

Ah thanks for the clarification. I have neither anymore but used to watch them when they were available. But it was often true that the game that I was most interested in was on at a rough time slot. It's really hard to get a feel for the game though. You don't get much perspective on how the momentum has switched or if a team is down on itself, it's kind of surreal to watch.

I think that you mean NFL "Rewind" not "Replay". Rewind is the online subscription for $40 that is indeed awesome (I'm a biased subscriber). IIRC Replay is the shortened game that NFL Network shows at various times later in the week for most but not all games. It's also pretty good. But without TIVO it's hard to watch those games when they're on at 3am.

As others have pointed out, leading the league in tackles means only one thing: a LOT of plays are getting run at you, this is a bad thing. Again, having our safety amongst the team lead in tackles is also a bad thing. ...but, it still means that those two are sticking there heads in and getting to the guy with the ball. So it still means something positive. IMO Whitner is having his best year by a pretty good margin.

I was truly amazed at how often and successful we were running it up the gut against TWO good NT often playing at the same time. I think Hang has gotten more grief than he deserves and is a competent center, BUT Woods sure looked good.

Agreed. I enjoyed the game on tv. It wasn't always a thing of beauty, but NOTHING last last years Cleveland abomination. And heck, we WON! We showed some real grit and determination vs the run and it looks like the coaching staff did some real good things and the players listened and executed. Shoot, I like that.

This was my intent. I have this (not necessarily grammatically correct) habit of writing sentences as though they were spoken. I find that readers will often "hear" the sentence as though someone had spoken it. In this case, I prefered to run the two sentences together as someone would if they were bellowing it into the room to chastise misbehaving children.

Good Lord, what do we have here 5th graders? It's fine if you can't read 4 consecutive sentences without losing interest but do you really need to be proud of it? This is an analysis of our football team and a good one at that. If all you want to do is B word and whine stay in those threads. Thanks R. Rich, I always look forward to your insights on the game. Especially this one, I'm not sure how you were able to stomach that one as we were pretty brutal in just about every facet of that game.

The OPs essential point is correct. Look, our OLine settled down after the first few games and became competent. Not great, but decent, and a whole lot better than the start of the season or last year. The problem is that we have no good RT and little to no depth. We got decimated with injuries vs the Vikings. Their front 4 is close to if not the best in the NFL. They were beating our starters and crushed our replacements. We were due for a down game and they helped us by disrupting everything. They were beating on Fitz all game long (after first mauling our OL). No QB looks good on his back. Pro-bowl filled D-Line >>>>>>>>>>>>> than weak replacement O-linemen. If any of us would have known before the game started that we wouldn't have Wood, Hangartner nor Urbik due to injuries we'd all figure that we'd lose the game. Heck I was worried with just Wood MIA.

A little harsh, but not that far off. Leonard was a guy who was easy to root for, but he's undersized and relatively speaking undertalented. However, he's worked hard and has improved significantly. Very much unlike Ko Simpson, who started out better, but never really took a step forward. That's why guys like Leonard stick around for a while. They work hard and overachieve. They are known as journeymen and can fill a role for a year or three.

Or she likes it!

I agree. I don't miss the seemingly endless streams of 3 and out at all. While I felt that our teams have generally played hard too the end, it always seemed to me that under DJ we were playing not to lose. Relying solely on the other teams to make mistakes. Good teams wouldn't make those mistakes and would beat us regularly. Bad teams would make just enough mistakes to allow us a narrow victory. It just never felt like good football. We were simple in schemes and plays for both offense and defense. Scores were artificially low because we wouldn't give up big plays but would allow tons of little plays. Letting the other team methodically march downfield eating up tons of clock, and scoring just enough to win. I don't miss those days at all. Our defense is still bad, but at least they're finally playing together. It sure didn't feel that way in the beginning of the year. Our offense has been impressive. I no longer feel a sense of doom every 3rd down.