Prologue
This article is Part Two of an earlier article on retired Oakland Raiders. It was published in June 2009.
I believe that the re-publication of this article may help to raise the level of awareness of an issue that is a silent crisis in the NFL, and particularly with some of the senior Oakland Raiders.
Article - revisited
One sports writer who knows many retired NFL players and who I have admired for more than 30 years, bluntly indicated that he is older now. He says he cannot take on any new projects. He is dealing with his reality of getting older.
He is 76 years old. ...
Released by Forbes before 2009, the Oakland Raiders came in as the least valuable franchise in the NFL. It is now worth only —relatively —797 million dollars. The Raiders lost around 5 million dollars from 2008.
Due to losses, the Raiders had to resort to advertising their brand name on a Thai airline last summer.
Ironically, the Raiders have the highest payroll of any NFL team ...
Someone once said that, "those who can not learn from history are doomed to repeat it".
I guess that statement can be a matter of perspective depending on whom it's applied to and what part of history is being repeated.
Al Davis has seen this statement come to pass as the Raiders have revisited the mid 90's. During those dark times the Raiders were plagued with underachieving players and coaches that were as equally ineffective. The greatness of the Raiders trickled away with the great players like Marcus Allen, Bo Jackson and Howie Long, all leaving one by one. The long legacy of ...
When times were simpler, maybe a bit foolish, things seemed a lot simpler. For the Raiders, a player here and things would be fine.
A lineman goes down hurt? Just plug in another player.
Marcus Allen is down? Plug in Bo Jackson.
And so on and so forth.
In this day and age, however it is no longer a simple game where you can just drop in one player and expect things to run smoothly. Nor is it a case where a simple player can turn an entire team into a playoff-worthy club, no matter who the player is.
Even something as simple as dropping ...
Stetson is currently a member of the Atlantic Sun conference and would look to join the Pioneer Football League, a non-scholarship league. A-Sun member Jacksonville is also a member and Mercer has expressed some football interest. If Stetson and another southeast school like Mercer were to join the Pioneer, you could potentially see (2) divisions formed such as: East: Marist, Campbell, Davidson, Jacksonville, Stetson, Mercer West: Morehead St, Dayton, Drake, Butler, Valpo, San Diego
From Dayton Beach Journal :
"Stetson University — are you ready for some football? That question may get a quick answer as university officials are ...
In a stunning turn of events, Athletic's pitcher Ben Sheets has already managed to find a way to injure himself. Ben Sheets was ecstatic about joining his new ball-club and getting things started in Spring Training. He was hoping to get off on the right foot, but he literally didn't.
A's outfielder Coco Crisp decided to report to Spring Training early also this year. Reports state that, on the bus ride to the A's spring training facility, Ben Sheets was cracking jokes about the new A's outfielder. Crisp was not taking the jokes too lightly and decided to take matters into ...
After CBS switched the coverage in my area from the Raiders/Giants game to the Lions/Steelers game at half time in Week Five, I got to thinking...how much worse does it have to get before Al Davis realizes what’s happening to this once great franchise and the best fan base in football?
For all we know, this could be exactly what he wants. Think about it. Some people are saying that he is he just trying to drive the attendance down so he can petition the league to move the team again. That’s ridiculous, and I don’t believe it, but it is a scenario ...
Overall Scouting Grade: C
The Raiders draft was up and down this season. All you have to do to impress Raiders owner Al Davis, is run a fast 40 time. That's the main requirement. For example, let's go to Darrius Heyward-Bey (DHB).
DHB ran a 40 in 4.30 seconds. However, he didn't have one 50-catch season. Guys like Michael Crabtree and Jeremy Maclin were still on the board. But Al Davis just had to have the fastest one. In fact, every skill position player (except for JaMarcus) drafted in the first round, had a 40 time of 4.5 or better.
If you don't ...
Everybody knows Oakland has to fix the offensive line if they are to be competitive in 2010, whether through free agency or the draft.
Given their current starters and depth of talent (or lack of it) at the tackle position, the probability is that they will go in this direction early in the draft.
Whilst nothing is certain, it is likely that that the top five offensive tackles will go off the board in round one, but the rankings show some variation as you would expect.
In the end it doesn’t matter what I think, it matters what the scouts think and what ...
Raiders have alot of work to do this offseason. Before the free agency period starts the raiders have theres a few of their own players that are free agents that they have to keep. They finally got step one out the way by signing Janikowski to a long term Deal. Next up most likely will be Richard Seymour as it should be. It may be hard for the Raiders to keep Morrison and Howard though. It would be beneficial for the raiders to keep both players. Morrison may be More valuable to keep as he is an above average MLB ...