Perpetually putrid Raiders short-circuit fans' hopes again
The worst thing about the hype surrounding the opening of the NFL season is if your team celebrates the start of the new year by being unwatchable. I mean, you get all dressed up for a party and end up drinking a beer someone else used as an ashtray by mistake.
Thus, we come not to salute the Denver Broncos for laying a 41-14 stomping on the Oakland Raiders, but to wonder how much longer Raiders fans are going to admit as much in public.
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| It's the same drill, different year in Oakland: Get excited only to get crushed in Week 1. (US Presswire) |
Well, OK, there are the Rams.
But the Raiders are a special brand of bad, and they proved it to Insomniac Nation on Monday night. They did nothing ... no, less than nothing. In their second-worst home opener ever, they displayed every kind of sloth, talent shortfall, personal foul fetish, tactical indifference (how do you lose by 27 and run more than you pass in this era?) and general ennui that has marked the worst moments of their past five years of work.
They also made a potential All-Pro out of a guy named Eddie Royal (nine catches, 146 yards, one score) whom none of their expensive secondary members could mind, and they might have gotten their own All-Pro candidate, Darren McFadden, hurt.
But they're used to all that. They've been doing it for the past half-decade, and reduced stinking out the joint to a near art form.
The worst part -- if you believe the NFL is our secular religion -- is that in their humiliation, exposure and dismissal, they stole from their painted-up fans the ability to enjoy the possibilities of a new season before it had barely begun. They made their fans feel like fools for believing in the new regime, the new players, the new ticket plan, all of it.
In fact, they don't even get to brag to their pals who like the 49ers that their boys got 14 to San Francisco's 13. When you choose to pay for this kind of slop, bragging rights don't count for much. Where's the fun in, "My team is one point less horrifying than your team?"
They were suckered in by the acquisition of cornerback DeAngelo Hall, who was crushed by Royal, a rookie from Hall's alma mater (Virginia Tech) who got the action he got only because of Brandon Marshall's suspension. They were falsely excited by the re-signing of defensive lineman Tommy Kelly, who was among the many Raiders who never laid a hot breath on Denver quarterback Jay Cutler despite the two offensive tackles, Ryan Clady and Ryan Harris, who had never started a game before. They expected something significant from strong safety Gibril Wilson, who did not deliver, and neither did the man he displaced, free safety Michael Huff.
Offensively, there were some (but not nearly enough) fleeting signs from quarterback JaMarcus Russell, and some intriguing runs from McFadden before he left the game with a stinger. But for the most part, they were outplayed, outcoached, outefforted (all verified by various players afterward) and, frankly, outed as another typically bad Raiders team -- waiting either for their teammates to pick up their slack, or for the coaches to be fired or re-assigned. They have felt this malaise before, and they have not risen above it, not for years now.
Which brings us back to the fans, who have believed too long in the idea that the same old show is going to be re-scripted, re-plotted, redesigned and just plain renewed. They got their hopes up again, and they were more than merely betrayed. They were played as dopes by the team in which they invest their money, time and love, and even the most faithful of supporters draw the line there.
Well, some of them, anyway. There has never been a completely empty stadium in NFL history, but there have been lots of teams as bad as the Raiders.
And now they've handed their fans a sixth reminder that the good feelings of Week 1 are not theirs to have. It doesn't get worse than that.
Yet.
