Words are powerful. There are words that resound in the minds of men and women when they experience career-threatening or life-threatening experiences. There are words to inspire the Oakland Raiders to rise up and take hold of victory.
There are many ways to experience death. The decline and death of the value of a franchise and of a fine reputation of a team once feared by most teams in the NFL is a slow death.
It is a death that many of us refuse to accept. We seek a resurrection, a revival of those victories and triumphs in the NFL.
Sometimes the words before the demise ...
Raider nation will be wearing black for two reasons with the news that former All-Pro safety Jack "The Assassin" Tatum has died of a heart attack on the morning of July 27.
Despite Tatum playing a decade before I was born, he has always been my favorite all-time raider. His intimidating presence and devastating hits made him the face of the daunting Raider defense in the 1970s.
Reading Tatum's book "They Call Me the Assassin" inspired me to create the screen name "hit_it_like_tatum" when I was in high school.
Arguably, the most memorable Super Bowl moment in Raider's history was in 1976 when Tatum blasted Viking's ...
Jack Tatum had a gift.
His departure is but a sign that his gift must be passed on to younger Raiders.
It reminds me of the story about Elijah and Elisha. At the departure of Elijah, the older man, the anointing and gift of this old man was passed on to the younger Elisha. What's more is that Elisha desired the blessing.
Who desires to exercise gifts similar to Jack Tatum? Now is the time, and this is the season that he must come forth.
Do you think this concept is unreasonable? Even if you do, there are examples in history of men who ...
Before I begin, I want to acknowledge the death of Jack Tatum. Those were the first two words I ever spoke because of my older brothers.
Jared Gaither is definitely a man well-needed in Raider Nation. He remains unhappy in Baltimore so a move for him is possible.
While many question Gaither's heart and work ethic, he has done nothing but produce on the field. His production is certainly that of a man that puts the work in.
Gaither gave up only three sacks last year and combined that with an 89 percent win percentage at the point of attack in the run game. Only one in every ten ...
Aspiring defensive backs don’t want to be known as soft. They don’t want to be billed as tentative. They don’t want to be pushed around.
Players that roam the secondary want to be tough, intimidating, and fierce. Jack “The Assassin” Tatum was the first of that kind. Tatum died Tuesday at the age of 61, but his impact on the game of football will live in the history books.
The following are the five most significant, but not necessarily important or memorable, moments in Jack Tatum’s football career.Begin Slideshow
He was known to millions worldwide as The Assassin . Sad news hits us all when we learned that Jack Tatum, the All-Pro safety for the Oakland Raiders had died of a heart attack in the city of Silver and Black, Oakland. He was a youthful 61.
Jack Tatum was known for his hard-hitting plays. So hard in fact, that on Aug. 12, 1978, Darryl Stingley, ran into Jack Tatum on a crossing pattern and was left paralyzed.
Jack Tatum was not the type of player to intentionally hurt players. However, according to his book They Call Me the ...
So passes Jack Tatum, one of the truly greatest players ever to grace the silver and black.
Jack Tatum died today of a suspected heart attack after long suffering from diabetes.
There never was anyone else like Jack Tatum, he was a unique individual who left his mark on the National Football League to the extent that he is still talked about today as one of the most intimidating defensive presences of all time.
What is defense about if not about hitting?
Nobody hit like Jack Tatum, and I mean nobody. Not Dick Butkus, not Ray Lewis, no one at all.
His hits on Earl Campbell and Sammy ...
The NFL Season is about to start and college classes are about to resume soon. That could only mean one thing . . . PARTY TIME!
When I think about parties I have to look at movies like Old School, The Hangover and American Pie.
I have compiled the ultimate list of 10 teams that we should all want to party with.
I used a very complex and scientific formula that helped rank the teams from 1 to 10.
The first couple slides will explain the formula, then the ultimate party list will begin.
Begin Slideshow
For most of the Raider Nation, spirited and violent play was a simple way to explain how the Raiders operated in the 1970's.
A far easier act was letting someone watch Jack Tatum patrol the grounds he called home.
Jack, for most of his career in Oakland, was considered by many to be the best at what he did: forcing opponents to either give up on the ball or wake up on the sidelines wondering what area code they were in.
Today, Jack will hunt no more, as he has died of a heart attack at 61.
Known more for the hit that crippled ...
If you look at the names of the teams, you can say that they are symbolically matched, man to man. The Cowboys will tangle with the Raiders, and who is to say that the Raiders won't win in their first preseason game.
I know that you have looked at the win-loss record of both teams:
Cowboys 11-5
Raiders 5-11
My strong imagination says that the data needs to be flipped with respect to the x-axis, so that the Oakland Raiders end up with an 11-5 season. Then my vivid imagination says to flip the data with respect to the y-axis, and again you can get an ...