OFFENSIVE LINE

ART SHELL (LT)
GENE UPSHAW (LG)
JIM OTTO (C)
STEVE WISNIEWSKI (RG)
LINCOLN KENNEDY (RT)
Dave Dalby (C)
Wayne Hawkins (G)
Henry Lawrence (T)
Mickey Marvin (G)
Don Mosebar (C)
Barret Robbins (C)

They started together as a trio for five seasons. From 1970-74, they were like a formation of road graders for the Raiders: the incomparable Art Shell, the wily and athletic Gene Upshaw and the gritty Jim Otto. Together they made 27 Pro Bowls in their career, and I’d argue there has never been a greater threesome on one team for that long.

All three are automatic starters on the all-time team.

Shell was the prototypical left tackle, huge, nimble on his feet and wholly dedicated to the team. He is one of the best ever. Upshaw wasn’t as dominating, but he was tall and quick and as intelligent as they come (smart enough to get away with holding on a fairly regular basis). Otto would probably have laid down his life for his team; he was the only first-team all-pro the AFL ever had.

Starting alongside them here are Steve Wisniewski and Lincoln Kennedy. Wiz was the nicest guy you could meet off the field, and one of the nastiest between the lines. He started for the Raiders for 13 seasons and made the Pro Bowl eight times. Kennedy was in Oakland for eight years, and was the standout on a line that drove the team to two AFC championship games. Another tough, tough man who played through a variety of injuries.

Among the backups, Barret Robbins drew the most scorn when I originally announced my team. Some were infuriated that I left off Jim Plunkett, who quarterbacked the Raiders to two Super Bowl victories, and included Robbins, whose disappearance the night before XXXVII may have contributed to the team’s demise against the Buccaneers.

Anyway, who needs four centers? No one, but the thing is, Robbins and Mosebar both could play guard, too. In fact, Mosebar could play pretty much any position along the line. That versatility is what gets backup O-linemen on the roster. And don’t forget that Robbins was a superb center for the seven years he started in Oakland, before his bipolar disorder got the best of him.

The only other surprise may have been Wayne Hawkins. I never saw him play (please chime in if you did), but he made five Pro Bowls in his decade with the Raiders (1960-69).

Among the final cuts at offensive line were tackles Harry Schuh and Bob Brown, and guards Mickey Marvin and Max Montoya. Brown was one of the best ever, but suited up for the Raiders for just three years. Montoya started for only four. Marvin was a very solid blocker for 11 years (seven as a starter), but not what you’d call elite. Schuh, a three-time Pro Bowl pick in the AFL, simply had too much competition at tackle.

Coach Tom Cable made it official less than a half hour ago. Bruce Gradkowski will start against the Cincinnati Bengals this Sunday, the latest come-down in the sputtering career of JaMarcus Russell.

“Just felt like he would give us the best chance to win, and we need to get to playing better offensively and win football games,” Cable explained of his decision.

Cable later elaborated, saying, “I just think his leadership, his management, understanding of what we’re trying to do… accuracy. Just a lot of those intangible-type things, and give him a chance to get all the reps and go out and build some chemistry with the receivers.”

The coach said Russell will be his No. 2 on Sunday, and will remain such until further notice. Asked whether Gradkowski is in a “week to week” situation, Cable replied: “No, I don’t want to be like that. This is where we’re headed and what we’re gonna do, and he’ll take this team and go with it.”

We didn’t have access to either quarterback after practice. That will come together. But Cable acknowledged that Russell wasn’t thrilled with the decision.

“Disappointed, as you would expect him to be,” he said. “But explained to him why and the reasons behind it, and the decision’s final, and this is where we’re gonna go. And he came out today and worked hard and did what he needed to do.”

Gradkowski is 3-9 as an NFL starter, with 11 starts as a 2006 rookie and one for Cleveland last year.

Unless owner Al Davis is outdoing himself with cloak and dagger, it looks like Gradkowski will get the call against the Bengals this Sunday – a decision that is sure to get much of Raider Nation partying in the streets.

Gradkowski spoke to reporters in the locker room this morning, but wouldn’t say whether he or JaMarcus Russell was starting. We’ll see if we can get a quick word with the new starter after practice, though usually players are off-limites then.

Here’s one piece of good news: Gradkowski has beaten the Bengals before.

It was 2006, and the Buccaneers were 0-4 when they hosted 3-1 Cincinnati. Gradkowski, a rookie, rallied the Bucs to a 14-13 victory that couldn’t have been any dicier. The Bengals thought they won twice, first when Justin Smith sacked Gradkowski and caused a fumble that would have made it second-and-18 on the 40-yard line. And again when Tampa Bay wide receiver Michael Clayton lost control of the ball as he crossed the goal line.

Smith was flagged for roughing the passer on the first play – a call that enraged the Bengals – and Clayton’s incompletion was turned into a touchdown upon a replay review.

The Raiders might need that sort of favorable bounce to beat Cincinnati behind Gradkowski this Sunday. And they’d happily take it.

Fred Biletnikoff did it pretty much every time he had the chance. So do guys like Reggie Wayne and Michael Crabtree. And heck, even second-year Raider Chaz Schilens.

But the rest of Oakland’s young receiving corps is having a hell of a time hanging onto the ball. It’s one of the problems that is dooming this 2-7 team. After the 16-10 loss yesterday, coach Tom Cable said he counted eight drops; my unofficial count was nine.

“I didn’t really count the ones that would have been like circus catches,” Cable said.

To be fair, many of the drops were by non-wide-receivers. Four running backs – Darren McFadden, Justin Fargas, Luke Lawton and Gary Russell – dumped one each. Talk about sharing the load. And tight end Tony Stewart clanged one before getting blasted. But Johnnie Lee Higgins let a ball bounce off his hands and into the arms of safety Mike Brown. And of course Darrius Heyward-Bey added to his prodigious low-light reel of drops, missing a potential touchdown on a bomb from JaMarcus Russell, and later tipping one of the most critical passes of the game, from Bruce Gradkowski, with 30 seconds left. That one ended up in Brown’s possession, too.

“It’s frustrating, because if you guys come out to our practices, we practice hard,” said Schilens, who had three catches in his return to action. “We catch. We do all the little things we’re supposed to. It seems like we’re coming out here on game days and just giving games away.”

“It’s something we’ve spent hours and hours and hours of time on,” Cable said. “It’s a matter of confidence in being able to catch the football.”

Those quotes summon bad news for the Raiders, because they show that at this level, it is no simple task to teach a guy how to catch the ball. Maybe confidence level really is part of the problem, and guys like Heyward-Bey will eventually get it. Or maybe it’s a natural skill that you either have or you don’t.

One more troubling note: DHB raced out of the locker room before the media entered last night. That certainly isn’t the mark of a confident player.

Justin Fargas dove in from a yard out on second-and-goal, and the Raiders were off to a great start against KC.

Left guard Robert Gallery, right tackle Cornell Green and running back Darren McFadden are also active. Gallery and Green are penciled in as starters, while McFadden is listed third on the chart, behind Michael Bush and Justin Fargas.

Here are Oakland’s inactives: WRs Todd Watkins, Javon Walker and Nick Miller, LB Ricky Brown, OL Khalif Barnes and Erik Pears, DE Greg Ellis and Charlie Frye, the emergency QB. Rookie Matt Shaughnessy is expected to start in place of Ellis, who in my opinion might be the Raiders’ MVP over the first half of the season.

Note that Barnes and Pears are two of only four backups along the O-line. I guess Langston Walker is ready for action, eh?

Tom Cable’s team has been installed as a 1½-point favorite over the Kansas City Chiefs in a game at the Coliseum, a setup that has become quite a rarity. It’s the first time this year the Raiders go into a game as the favorite. In fact, by my reckoning this team hasn’t been favored since the last time the Chiefs rolled into town – Nov. 30, 2008, almost a year ago.

The point here is not to celebrate the gambling industry. It’s to note that this is an eminently winnable game, something the Raiders don’t see much these days.

There are some really bad teams in the NFL this year, and Kansas City is one of them. The Chiefs’ defense is atrocious. They are 30th in the NFL in overall defense (388.5 yards per game), 28th in rushing defense (136.2) and 30th in passing defense (252.2). Only five other teams have allowed more points than KC’s 205 – bottom feeders Tennessee, Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis and Tampa Bay. The Chiefs have 10 sacks, while their opponents have 30.

They can’t run the ball very week, either, averaging 3.5 yards per carry. It’s hard to say if that number will get better or worse without Larry Johnson, the former 1,700-yard rusher who finally wore out his welcome with the team that drafted him after a new round of boorish, numb-headed behavior that momentarily bumped Cable out of the sports tabloids’ pole position.

The Raiders won at Kansas City in Week 2 despite not playing very well. There is every reason to expect them to win Sunday, too, which would raise their record to 3-6. Not good by any stretch, but not humiliating either, by recent standards.

We know how the Raiders have done as the underdogs over the entire first half of this season. Let’s see how they perform as the favorites.

They have been playing an Ice Cube / Raiders rap video before games this year, and it’s pretty damn good measured by the yardstick of team promos. The relationship between the team and the artist goes back a long way, and is currently being cemented by Cube’s directorial production of a documentary about the interconnectedness of the L.A. Raiders and the rise of NWA-inspired gangsta rap in L.A., part of ESPN’s so-far excellent “30-for-30” series.

Click here for a partial transcript of Ice Cube’s interview with Murph and Mac on KNBR.

But two Raiders have risen above the muck — and no seasoned fan will be surprised to hear which two. Veteran Sports Illustrated writer Peter King named cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha and punter Shane Lechler to his midseason all-pro team.

These were not boilerplate picks based solely on reputation. King went out on a limb to select guys like 49ers DT Aubrayo Franklin and Ravens rookie T Michael Oher.

Asomugha has no interceptions yet in 2009, but is now universally (and appropriately) regarded as a guy opposing quarterbacks just don’t throw at. Lechler leads the NFL in gross punting average (52.3) and is second in net average (44.9), both of them obscene numbers.

Congratulations to the budding actor and the booting Aggie.

Next, King is expected to write about owner Al Davis’ twisted vendetta against Lane Kiffin. Oh, wait, that’s Stephen King.

One of the most popular NFL video clips of the weekend involved Redskins CB DeAngelo Hall, who found himself in the midst of a fracas along the Falcons sideline in Sunday’s game, following safety LaRon Landry’s cheap shot on QB Matt Ryan.

Hall, of course, will forever live in infamy in Raider Nation after one of the most expensive, and least productive, half-seasons in franchise history. He is in Washington now, and at least carrying his weight at corner now that he is back where he belongs, in a Cover 2 system.

What’s interesting about the scuffle — other than Hall insisting he was a peacemaker and will personally contact NFL commissioner Roger Goodell regarding the Falcons’ conduct — is that, while most headers described it as an issue between Hall and Atlanta head coach Mike Smith, it was really Falcons strength and conditioning coach Director of Athletic Performance Jeff Fish who earned the cornerback’s ire.

Fish is another former Raider. He joined Norv Turner’s staff in 2004 and wound up staying with the team for four seasons. Most of the players thought very highly of him. Fish and Hall didn’t overlap in Oakland, but there must be some current Raiders who are highly amused by the clip.

What’s next? Randy Moss vs. Bill Callahan?