Super Bowl Buzz Kill: Raiders

Do you think your team is going to the Super Bowl? Ha. Your team sucks. Why put yourself through the aggravation every year? The Hater Nation is here to bring you back to reality with the award-winning series, The Super Bowl Buzz Kill.

Why your team won’t win the Super Bowl: Oakland Raiders.


You're analog players in a digital world. – Roman Nagel (Eddie Izzard), Ocean’s 13.

Nothing seems to describe the Raiders better than that. Al Davis continues to run the Raiders like he’s competing for Super Bowl 3, instead of Super Bowl 43. Some great football minds such as Joe Gibbs and Bill Parcells had to admit that they could no longer compete in the modern NFL. Davis is defiant, insisting that things can be done the Raiders way. You almost can envision Davis, sitting in a bathrobe, hunched over his Commodore 64, trying to figure out how log on to the internet.

Of course, that cord is plugged into a banana instead of the outlet in the wall. And much like that outdated computer, the Raiders don’t have much hope of working, either.

The Raiders way is no longer commitment to excellence. It's a commitment to the 1970s. If the Raiders were a Simpsons character, they would be Disco Stu. And Disco Stu says only four wins for you. But when compared to the Raiders most recent records, four wins is a high-point.

The most amazing thing about the Raiders is this: there are annually bad teams in the league. The Lions. The Cardinals. The Bengals.

None of them seem to care. Mike Brown probably doesn't care if the Bengals ever make the Super Bowl again. Hell, given that their two attempts ended so badly, he probably doesn’t want to experience that again.

Even the fans of the Bengals don’t care. They just don’t want their players to get arrested or change their names anymore. If the Lions or Cardinals had fans, they probably wouldn’t care either.

Raiders fans care. They are delusional, too. Raiders fans made their predictions here. Most picked a winning season. Some predicted a losing season. Only one person predicted a realistic 3-13 mark, but he was going for the reverse jinx.

But nobody wants to win more than Davis. Winning consumes him. The Raiders long streak of futility in the wake of Super Bowl 37 has to be killing him. Among other things.

Davis has now gone on tilt. Davis won a number of championships serving as a halfway house of near-do-wells and other trouble makers in the NFL. The only problem was, guys like Ted Hendricks and Lyle Alzado were immensely talented and committed to winning.

Do you think Javon Walker is committed to winning? Is DeAngelo Hall committed to anything other than running his mouth? Walker nearly retired during the summer, but Davis had to convince him to stay. (Does anybody wonder how that conversation went?) Hall is one of the most overrated cornerbacks in the NFL. Opposing quarterbacks are going to be picking on him, thanks to Nnamdi Asomugha being lined up on the opposite side. Sorry DeAngelo, you can’t line up against Steve Smith every week.

But let’s pretend – like Raiders fans tend to do – that Walker and Hall have great seasons. Maybe JaMarcus Russell gets it. Maybe Darren McFadden is the second coming of Tom Cable. And hell, maybe the defense is as impressive as it was two years ago.

That’s a lot of ifs. Much like the number of cons that the Ocean 11’s had to pull off to win. Even if everything goes well for the Raiders, there’s Lane Kiffin standing on the sidelines.

The only reason he still has a job is that he didn’t want to walk away from his guaranteed contract. He’s just a place holder until they can get Dennis Green in there.

Watching the Raiders extend it’s playoff boycott may not be funny to you, but it sure as hell ain’t sad.


THE GOODELL SCALE
(The odds of your team winning the Super Bowl, based on 1-to-5 Goodells. One being worst, five being best.)



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