Tag: Oakland Raiders (Page 16 of 33)

      Patriots win, but issues continue to pile up

      December 13, 2009 /

      While the Patriots managed to earn a 20-10 victory over the Panthers in Week 14, they hardly have reason to celebrate.

      They gained 377 total yards, but turned the ball over three times. They held the Panthers to just 179 passing yards, but gave up 305 net yards. Tom Brady led the Pats on a nice 13-play scoring drive to give them the lead late in the third quarter, but his interception set up Carolina’s first touchdown. Wes Welker caught another 10 passes for 105 yards, but Randy Moss hauled in just one pass for 16 yards…and fumbled it.

      Speaking of Moss, he flat out dogged it on the field today. He ran lackluster routes, was seen pouting on the sidelines and appeared to give up on a pass that was intercepted by Carolina in the first half. In other words, he was the exact opposite of Welker, who continues to give his all on every play.

      Bill Belichick also decided to go for it again on fourth down and once again the Patriots failed. It wasn’t a bad decision because his offense was in no man’s land, but maybe it’s time for Belichick to scale back the aggressiveness if his offense can’t be counted on to convert.

      In the NFL, a win is the only thing that matters and at 8-5, the Pats are still in good position to win their division. But this is hardly an elite team anymore and if they do wind up making the postseason, things are setting up for an early exit for New England.


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      NFL Week 13 Top 5 Observations: Raiders 27, Steelers 24

      December 6, 2009 /

      Here are five quick-hit thoughts on the Raiders’ shocking 27-24 upset of the Steelers in Week 13.

      1. The Steelers could be done.
      It’s easy to jump to conclusions after a loss like this, but there’s a very good chance that the defending champs won’t make the playoffs this season. They’re now one game behind the Jaguars and two games behind the Broncos in the AFC Wild Card chase with only four games remaining. That’s plenty of time to turn things around, but not with the way Pittsburgh has played over the past month.

      2. Pittsburgh’s secondary killed them today.
      The Steelers have played without Troy Polamalu before and have played quite well. But it was clear today that his absence has killed Pittsburgh’s defense. When Bruce Gradkowski can throw for 308 yards and three touchdowns on your secondary, you know something is wrong. What’s worse is that Gradkowski made it look easy, too. Joe Burnett’s missed sure-fire interception and Ryan Clark’s personal foul penalty killed the Steelers in the end.

      3. Maybe the Steelers just aren’t that good.
      Considering they’re in the middle of a playoff race and had lost three games coming into today, the Steelers can’t blame this loss on a letdown or that they played down to their opponents’ level. They just didn’t make enough plays in the end to come away with a victory and maybe the bottom line is that they just aren’t as good as some people thought. Everyone used to say that the lack of a running game would start costing them games, but the running game has been fine under Rashard Mendenhall. Injuries have certainly been a problem defensively, but the fact of the matter is that Pittsburgh just isn’t making enough plays this season to win games. It’s the exact opposite scenario of last season.

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      JaMarcus Russell will never succeed in the NFL

      November 16, 2009 /

      Growing up, many of us were told: “Never say never.”

      But F-that – JaMarcus Russell will never succeed in the NFL, period.

      During the Raiders’ putrid effort in a 16-10 loss to the Chiefs on Sunday, Oakland head coach Tom Cable benched Russell after the quarterback completed just nine of his 24 pass attempts for 67 yards. It was a typical Sunday outing for Russell, filled with accuracy issues, a complete disregard for pocket awareness and zero signs of being prepared.

      After the game, Cable refused to commit to Russell as his starting quarterback moving forward and who could blame him? The former first overall pick’s 47.1 completion percentage and 5.5 YPA both rank him 30th in the NFL and he also has a 2:9 touchdown to interception ratio this season. He’s horrible, horrendous – awful.

      But numbers aside, Russell will never succeed in this league because he doesn’t care. He misses open receivers and then he stands on the sidelines acting like he’s rotating in and out of a touch football game at a family barbecue. He has zero passion, zero emotion and I wonder if the guy truly even wants to play football or if he just has the occupation because he can throw a ball 70-plus yards.

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      Are the Raiders getting ready to fire Cable?

      November 11, 2009 /

      Yahoo’s Jason Cole reports that Raiders owner Al Davis wants to fire head coach Tom Cable by the end of the season, but is working with the NFL to make sure that Cable can be fired for cause.

      If Davis had any wherewithal, he’d fire himself as GM and allow real football-minded people to run the team. But Davis won’t do that and now it appears that the Raiders will be making a head coaching change for the second time in two years.

      Davis is going to have one hell of a time filling the position, because no respectable coach wants that job. He won’t be able to hire a Mike Shanahan or Bill Cowher because there’s no way either men would want to assume that mess. Davis can cross Mike Holmgren’s name off the list too.

      What the Raiders need most is a head coach that can somehow get through to quarterback JaMarcus Russell because if he can’t develop, then the franchise will continue to sputter. Or maybe it’s time for Davis to cut his losses and move forward without Cable and Russell, because it appears that the latter is destined to be a massive bust.

      No matter how he handles the situation, it’s almost a guarantee that Davis will muck things up. He has a knack for making horrible decisions and he thinks it’s more important to have a head coach under his thumb than one that will run his football team the right way. After all, Cable was hired after Kiffin was let go because he served as a “yes man” to Davis.

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      JaMarcus Russell is clueless

      November 2, 2009 /

      Following his 109-yard passing day in a 21-16 loss to the Chargers on Sunday, Raiders quarterback JaMarcus Russell thought that he did a “pretty good job.”

      From the Contra Costa Times:

      “I did a pretty good job,” Russell told reporters. “When it all boils down to it, you had a chance at the end to try and win. Didn’t do too much damage with the interception. No matter what happened, I think we came out and fought despite the score and just kept pushing and just came out short in the end.”

      Just the mere fact that he thinks a 109-yard passing day is good shows how far Russell has to go in order to become a leader. And if you think I’m being too hard on him, remember that he also threw an interception that led to a touchdown for the Chargers, fumbled once, averaged just five yards per pass attempt and took five sacks.

      Compared to some other games this year, Russell’s performance wasn’t that bad. But for him to say that he was “good” would be disconcerting to me if I were in the Raider organization because he clearly isn’t striving to make himself better if he’s willing to settle for a performance like that.

      He’s long overdue to put on the big boy pants and start working on his craft. He continues to take his situation for granted (i.e. he knows the Raiders won’t replace him) and refuses to put in the work to become better. I realize he doesn’t have the best supporting cast around him, but the Raiders still deserve more from their former first overall pick.

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