Pathetic Raiders should change mantra to 'just try'

This just in from Oakland, where the freaky faithful still insist on strapping on studded shoulder pads festooned with Raiders skulls, and Randy Moss is fading faster than the yardage lines at an A's playoff game:

Just win, baby, is out.

Just try, baby, is the new mantra.

That's about what it has come down to on the bad side of the Bay, where being a member of Raider Nation used to mean more than dressing up on Sunday in your finest leather and pummeling a few Broncos fans on your way into the stadium.

Of course, it used to be winning was everything in Oakland. Now trying apparently counts a lot, too.

Has to, because there's a chance this Raider team may never win.

"I still feel our team is working hard," coach Art Shell said the other day. "They're trying to get things done."

That trying continues Sunday in Denver, where the Raiders meet their archrivals in a game that was once something to get excited about. Now it's a prime-time matchup missing only one thing: a team ready for prime time.

That has to disturb the people at NBC, who are paying hundreds of millions to showcase a game to the American public every Sunday night during the NFL season. They probably didn't figure on getting this mismatch when they looked at the schedule before the season started and saw two teams with a long and proud history between them.

John Madden might as well leave the bus running for this one. He's got the unenviable job of trying to make it somewhat entertaining for those tuning in. The only worst task might belong to the NBC ad salesman trying to sell second-half commercials when the only people still watching are loyal Broncos fans.

The Raiders are, in a word, pathetic. So pathetic that the oddsmakers in Las Vegas are almost begging people to put money on them by making the Broncos a 15-point favorite, the biggest line of any game this week.

With good reason.

A team that once gave you receivers like Fred Biletnikoff and, more recently, Tim Brown, was supposed to give other teams fits this season with the tandem of Moss and Jerry Porter hauling in long catches every Sunday afternoon.