Fumblaya - Fumblerooski

After watching the game Sunday and chewing off half of my fingers via my nervous habit, there are just some things that need to be said.

First I want to give props to the Defense. It has to be painful to hold a team to negative 5 yards passing for the entire game and still go home with a loss. I know that I was upset about it and I didn't even have to play opposite the offense. I don't see how they hold it together so well week after week. All I can say is we have a talented, classy, level-headed, hard working defense that deserves a lot better than the situation they find themselves in right now.

Secondly, John Shoop provided a much better game plan this week. Lots of quick hitting passes and runs. The majority of the sacks came because our offensive line is horrible and Brooks often forgets to throw the ball after the 3-step drop. I almost forgot what a slant looked like until Sunday. Unfortunately even the best game plan requires that the players execute with some semblence of consistency.

I really don't understand what has happened to our offensive line. They weren't great before, but I don't remember them being utterly horrible. Maybe I blocked it out to alleviate the pain, but I just can't understand what has happened to these guys. I'm not even sure what should be done here. Obviously we need to clear out most of these guys and replace them, but it's a tall order to replace virtually the entire offensive line in one off season. Maybe we could entice Lincoln Kennedy and Steve Wisniewski out of retirement. Short of that I don't know how they're going to fix this, but it quite obviously needs to be addressed.

What in the world was with all the fumbling? I can see the initial fumble happening. Hey it happens to everyone once in a while. But after that, it would seem that people would protect the ball even more than normal to prevent it from happening again. And there is just no way to justify 2 fumbles on 2 consecutive drives. The way to fix that is a cranial-rectomotomy. Some time on the bench might help as well.

Brooks is just not the answer. I am not sure Walter is either. But you have four games left to try to get something, anything to build on next year. There is no reason to play Brooks anymore. He's not winning, and he's not going to be in our long term future. Walter MIGHT be in our long term future, so you might as well play him now and see if you can get him going. Either way, the season is over, and we should be seeing what we can do about building up for next year. Winning or losing these four games means nothing either way, but determining whether or not Walter is a salvagable QB of the future is something we could use the rest of the season to figure out.

Reshard Lee might be pretty good. The first fumble not withstanding he played pretty darn well. His blocking is decent, not great but there is some potential there for a running back. He runs hard and seems to catch well out of the backfield. This guy might be someone to keep an eye on. Having not been overly impressed with Jordan so far, it would seem viable that we keep an eye out for hidden talent.

Lastly, I keep reading that the Raiders are the worst team in the NFL and we'll be getting the first draft pick. I still don't think they're the worst team, although that's hardly a ringing endorsement. I will say our offense is definitely really bad. But our defense is now ranked #3 overall in the NFL. It's always said that defense wins championships. The problem with that is the offense has to at least do enough not to lose the game for you. Right now the Raiders offense is losing the games for us. It's sort of a Jeckyll and Hyde situation right now. Here's hoping we can use the last 4 games to accomplish something constructive.

For now, and ever, I'm in THE RAIDER'S CORNER!!