Oakland Raiders: 5 Predictions For The 2015 Season
By Kevin Saito
Aug 15, 2014; Oakland, CA, USA; Oakland Raiders players join hands in a huddle before the game against the Detroit Lions at O.co Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
If you’ve been a fan of the Oakland Raiders for the last, oh, decade or so, you’re undoubtedly very familiar with the old phrase, “hope springs eternal.” Of course, if you’ve been one of the Oakland Raiders faithful for the last decade plus, all you’ve had to cling to is hope. Hope that next season, the team will turn a corner, and climb their way out of the darkness once more.
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Ever since their Super Bowl appearance in 2002 though, the Raiders haven’t come close to fulfilling the hope their loyal fan base has put in them year after year after year…
But things finally are beginning to look up in Oakland. There are finally some bright lights cutting through the darkness the Raiders have been dwelling in for so long. In this, the fourth year of Reggie McKenzie‘s tenure as the general manager of the Raiders, he has guided them through some difficult and uncharted waters, and can finally see smoother waters on the horizon.
With solid drafts the last two years in which he’s nabbed top shelf talent like Derek Carr, Khalil Mack, Amari Cooper, and Clive Walford, and a third draft class back in 2012 that has yielded some current Raiders starters and potential stars like Latavius Murray, Mychal Rivera, and Sio Moore, McKenzie has loaded the roster with solid, explosive young talent.
McKenzie has stayed true to his philosophy of building through the draft and augmenting the roster with veteran players. And though not all of those veteran have come close to working out, he’s been able to sign them to modest, team friendly deals, and then shuffle them out with minimal to no impact on the team’s salary cap situation as he found younger players to fill their spots.
Oakland finally has a lot of very intriguing components on the roster, and on paper, a squad that looks like it can be very good. This 2015 Raiders squad has the potential to do some very special things. And with a coaching staff led by the blue collar Jack Del Rio, who has a reputation for success and getting the most out of his players, we can expect these young playmakers to flourish under his leadership and guidance.
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Perhaps it’s just another year of “hope springs eternal,” or seeing the world through Silver and Black tinted glasses – undoubtedly, some will say so – but something about this year’s squad just feels different. It feels like the Raiders are on the verge of a big, big breakthrough. They certainly have the pieces in place, and with parity being what it is in the NFL today, anything is possible.
It’s with this warm and fuzzy feelings we have right now that we’ll throw on our special prognosticator hats and issue some bold predictions for the coming season. Hey, eight months from now, if our predictions come true, we’ll of course, bring them back up to remind you of our genius. And if they’re wrong, well, we’ll just ignore them, pretend they never happened, and hope you forget about them too.
With that in mind, we offer up a few bold Oakland Raiders’ predictions for the coming season…
Next: Prediction #1