Are you excited yet, Raider Nation? We're less than 96 hours away from the Raiders' first preseason game. As we head into the start of the 2012 season, let's take a look at Oakland's roster and examine what burning questions we have for everyone on the roster. For more foolish analysis, along with the occasional witty comment, Follow @FernandoRGallo.Begin Slideshow
Since being routed 48-21 by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl XXXVII, the Oakland Raiders have been the laughing stock of the NFL. AFC West bottom feeders for a decade, the once-proud Raiders were relegated to black-cladded whipping boys until finishing 8-8 in 2010. Following another .500 season in 2011, Raider Nation is all atwitter with postseason speculation, wondering if this is the year Oakland finally returns to the playoffs. If coach and quarterback are the two most important pieces of any football team, then Oakland could be in trouble. Rookie head coach Dennis Allen is the latest in ...
As August begins to move closer towards September, the plucky Oakland A's simply continue to be the Steve Urkel of Major League Baseball: Uninvited, often clumsy and awkward looking, but damn entertaining.At 60-51, they are entrenched in a three-way tie with the Detroit Tigers (not a surprise) and another surprise team, the Baltimore Orioles, for the Wild Card. No more than one and a half games out lurk the Los Angeles Angels and the team that replaced Oakland as baseball's "Little Engine That Could," the Tampa Bay Rays.Having now played more than two-thirds of the schedule, the specter of an ...
The 2012 Oakland A's sustained a nine-game losing streak in late May and were 22-30 on June 1. As recently as June 30th they were still only 37-42. Since then they have surged, going 23-9. At 60-51, the A's are playoff contenders, despite carrying only a $53 million payroll, down from $67 million a year ago. Featured columnist Mark Reynolds recently wrote a wonderful article entitled, "Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane Should Be MLB Executive of the Year." He reviews and correctly extols some of Beane's shrewd personnel moves, including the signing of Cuban star Yoenis Cespedes. I'd like ...
Instead of pads, head coach Dennis Allen had his players in shorts and shells during Wednesday morning’s practice. The players were originally slated to wear pads for the ninth consecutive practice, but Allen decided to ratchet down the intensity because the players had been giving good effort. The injury to Mike Goodson during yesterday’s practice likely factored into Allen’s thinking as well. Allen said Goodson was sore, but doing better. In the interim, Lonyae Miller, Rashawn Jackson and Marcel Reece split the load at tailback behind Darren McFadden. Reece was getting work as a tailback on Tuesday prior to Goodson’s ...
Successful Fantasy Football players know that the key to winning a league is acting on informed premonitions, not simply relying on what experts tell you or last season's stats. It is in that vein that I am looking at Taiwan Jones as a potential sleeper pick in the 2012 fantasy draft. Sleepers can mean everything to a fantasy football team's success. A few years ago, I drafted LeGarrette Blount when he was buried on Tennessee’s depth chart and picked up Steve Johnson before the mad rush for him began, both of which greatly contributed to my championship run. Granted, these ...
In a very scary incident during practice on Tuesday afternoon, Oakland Raiders running back Mike Goodson went down with a neck injury after a hard collision with linebacker Philip Wheeler. The 25-year-old was strapped to a backboard shortly after the episode and loaded into an ambulance, leaving players and spectators nervous about the extent of his injury. After practice, quarterback Carson Palmer spoke to the media and remarked,It’s scary when it happens to anybody. When you hear of a neck, back, or a head injury it scares you. [I’m] just so disappointed for Mike because he had been doing so good. ...
To say Carson Palmer did not have an ideal start to the 2011 NFL season with the Oakland Raiders is like saying Brendan Fraser made a bad movie or eight. Palmer has been in the league for 10 years. I know, I did a double-take when I saw that in his player profile too. The first two of those years was spent riding the bench. Half of the 2011 season was spent at home playing checkers and eating Cheez-Its. His first game action came in the third quarter of a game in which Kyle Boller threw three picks through the first ...
The upcoming NFL preseason is as much about starters regaining their game-speed ability as it about filling out those final roster spots.First-year head coach Dennis Allen will undoubtedly have many difficult decisions during the process of trimming the Oakland Raiders roster down to 53 guys.The following are three "bubble" players who need to have strong preseason showings in an effort to earn one of those last roster spots.Begin Slideshow
The Oakland Raiders put on the pads and hit the practice field in temperatures that touched 90 degrees. The soaring temperatures prompted a short scuffle between Brandon Underwood and Mike Goodson early in practice when Goodson took exception to a late hit. This was prior to Goodson being taken away on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance after a collision with linebacker Philip Wheeler. Thankfully, Goodson is going to be fine. The team announced that test results were negative, and Goodson was released from the hospital and allowed to return to the team hotel, but the scary scene ...