December 28th, 2006 06:34pm
by admin
The case for firing Art Shell after the season is so
self-explanatory I don’t feel the need to flesh it out in detail. You start
with an NFL-worst 2-13 record (most likely in the FasTrak lane to 2-14), proceed
to one of the worst offenses in modern history and a season-long feud with one
of the team’s best players, and you probably don’t need to offer a lot more.
The case for keeping Shell is …
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December 27th, 2006 06:30pm
by admin
Warren Sapp, improbably, has become the Buddha figure of the
Raiders’ locker room. He can occasionally be curt, and sometimes he gets lost
in thought reading e-mails or playing on-line poker on his Blackberry. But more
often, he parks himself on the bench in front of his locker and dispenses wit,
wisdom, analysis and belly laughs to a ravenous media audience.
Wednesday, Sapp was in fine form. The big man engaged a
small cluster of writers …
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December 23rd, 2006 04:30pm
by admin
Fire-the-coach season has officially opened in Oakland. With the
Raiders’ campaign spiraling downward at 2-12, it stood to reason that the
season finale would immediately be followed up with racing rumors of Art
Shell’s impending dismissal.
The first legitimate salvo was fired Thursday, by NFL
Network reporter Adam Schefter. During a pregame report from Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Schefter quoted
“a high-ranking Raiders official” who told him Shell would get his pink slip
following the season.
Schefter …
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December 21st, 2006 06:36pm
by admin
I guess I touched a nerve. My argument against Shane
Lechler’s Pro Bowl bid received more on-site comments from readers than any
other blog entry I have posted this season. Some of the messages blasted me,
but in general they were fairly evenly split between agreement and contention.
The visitors who criticized Lechler mostly argued that (1)
he works too hard to pad his statistics, and (2) he’s no Ray Guy.
That second complaint is a …
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December 19th, 2006 07:29pm
by admin
Cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha didn’t make the AFC Pro Bowl
squad. He should have. Some corners have the interceptions. Some have the body
of work over a long season, proving themselves hard to beat for pass
completions. Asomugha has both in 2006. What hurt him were (1) the Raiders’
record, and (2) his meteoric rise to elite status. It happened so fast, he
didn’t have enough time to garner the reputation that precedes Pro Bowl votes.
I …
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December 18th, 2006 06:52pm
by admin
It’s a scene that is replayed every other week in the home
locker room at McAfee Coliseum. When they throw open the door to writers and
cameras, players fill the room in various stages of hygiene and dress. Clusters
form around certain players, then break apart and reassemble elsewhere. The
athletes talk among themselves and slowly trickle away for home.
And when the room is nearly empty – only a sprinkling of
players and writers here …
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December 14th, 2006 07:14pm
by admin
Chalk up a win for the Raiders this weekend, their
long-anticipated third victory of the season. Premature? Talk to Warren Sapp.
“Money
good this week, money good,” the boisterous defensive tackle insisted on
Monday.
Sapp wasn’t dissing the Rams, this Sunday’s opponent. Rather, he was
citing a statistical phenomenon first proposed to him by Tony Dungy, his former
coach in Tampa Bay. It was 2001, and the Buccaneers had
just beaten the Rams 24-17 in a Monday-night game. …
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December 13th, 2006 06:46pm
by admin
You just can’t outfox Al Davis. On the day of final cuts,
Sept. 2, the Raiders unexpectedly sent wide receiver Doug Gabriel to New England for a fifth-round draft choice. The Patriots
waived Gabriel Tuesday, and the Raiders signed him today. So this team gets the
player and the draft choice! High-five!
Yes, the Raiders might be 2-11, but they’re not too
downtrodden to outfox the mighty Patriots on occasion.
Gabriel’s flight west is just the …
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December 11th, 2006 06:42pm
by admin
Has Randy Moss caught his last pass as a Raider? That sounds
a little melodramatic considering the guy merely twisted his ankle Sunday, and
didn’t look to be in severe pain as he stretched the joint on the Oakland sidelines in the
first half.
On the other hand, Moss and the Raiders might take this
opportunity to go into the latest permutation of Operation: Shutdown. Charles
Woodson showed how it was done last year after a …
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December 7th, 2006 06:00pm
by admin
There are seven African-American head coaches in the
National Football League. Art Shell is one of them, and his Raiders will wind
up playing another four – Cleveland’s Romeo Crennel, Arizona’s Dennis Green,
Kansas City’s Herm Edwards and, this Sunday, Cincinnati’s Marvin Lewis.
People are free to debate whether seven out of 32 jobs is
too few, or whether NFL teams have been making good-faith efforts to interview minority
candidates for open coaching positions. But it’s …
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Phil Barber covers the Raiders for The Press Democrat, uncovering news and features despite the team’s best efforts to keep everything a secret. He’ll keep our online audience up-to-date and informed with his blog “Instant Raiders.”
