Oakland Raiders’ 2015 Season Is All About A Single Word
By Kevin Saito
If you’ve been an Oakland Raiders fan for any length of time – especially over the last decade or so – you’ve probably noticed that among the sports media, it seems to be increasingly in fashion to bash and ridicule the organization. And the volume on that bashing and ridicule has only gotten louder and louder with each successive losing campaign.
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And let’s be fair, over the last twelve years, the Raiders have lost a lot of games. With a ton of mind numbing losses, and a plethora of even more mind numbing roster moves, they’ve made it far too easy for the super loud, obnoxious, hyperbolic, and vitriolic types – you know, the Stephen A. Smith’s of the world – to tee off on the franchise.
But given a very productive offseason that has seen an infusion of talent and a number of critical holes filled – which followed two and a half terrific drafts that have added a lot of young, explosive playmakers to the roster, there is a lot of hope floating around the Bay Area these days. And for the first time in a very long time, that hope seems to be founded upon something genuine. Something substantial. Something tangible.
And yet, despite the fact that Oakland has some incredible young talent in players like Derek Carr, Khalil Mack, Amari Cooper, as well as veteran leaders like Charles Woodson, Justin Tuck, and Donald Penn who are playing at a high level, “experts” across the board continue predicting nothing but more doom and gloom for the Raiders in 2015.
Take Peter King of the MMQB for example. King is the polar opposite of Stephen A. Smith – meaning that he’s intelligent, thoughtful, rational, and well spoken. But King seems to agree with the bloviating Smith’s assessment of Oakland’s fortunes in 2015 – or rather, Oakland’s lack of fortune.
In King’s latest power rankings, released this past Monday, King delivered his thoughts on where the Raiders will stand in 2015. According to King, the Raiders will once again be bottom dwellers in the NFL, with his prediction of another 3-13 season.
King believes the Raiders will be so horrifically bad in 2015, that the only team that will be worse is the Tennessee Titans. That’s right, Raider faithful, King is predicting that the Raiders are going to be worse than the absolute mess that it is the Cleveland Browns, a Tampa Bay team that has a rookie quarterback, no running backs to speak of, and a defense full of questions, a New York Jets team that seems to insist on giving the ball back to Geno Smith, a Chicago Bears team that was every bit as bad – and worse in a few categories – as the Raiders last season, and on and on.
So, if you happen to be scoring at home, King is predicting that of the 32 teams in the NFL, the Raiders are going to finish 31st.
In justifying his assessment of Oakland’s projected dismal record this coming season, King says:
"“It’s not that I don’t trust Derek Carr. It’s that I don’t trust Derek Carr’s health after what I’ve read about the problems with a finger on his throwing hand. That plus the fact that the Raiders have a boatload of existing holes that Jack Del Rio has to address this summer.”"
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It’s not exactly clear which rock King has been hiding beneath for the past few months, but he’s obviously missed a few things that the Raiders have done over the course of the offseason. Yes, there are still a few question marks. There are concerns in the secondary – namely, how well will Oakland’s young guns perform? There are some very mild questions about the running back group – specifically, who’s going to get the lion’s share of the carries, Latavius Murray or Trent Richardson, and how will they perform?
So while there are a few mild concerns and questions, it’s a far cry from the “boatload of existing holes” myth that King continues to perpetuate.
Oakland has had back to back incredible drafts that have stockpiled talent and laid a solid foundation for this team to build upon. And even in a draft class that wasn’t one of Reggie McKenzie‘s best, the 2013 class, Oakland has had some solid production from a few players in that group – players like Mychal Rivera, Murray, and D.J. Hayden – who will have even bigger roles in 2015.
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Knowing that the Raiders were horrible against the run last season, McKenzie went out and got two players who might not be among the league’s most celebrated, but are among the league’s best in stopping the run – Dan Williams and Curtis Lofton. Teamed with Justin Tuck, Justin Ellis, Sio Moore, Mack, and perhaps, Mario Edwards Jr., the Raiders have a front seven that has the potential to be among the league’s better units.
With Rod Streater back healthy and ready to roll, and the acquisition of Michael Crabtree – and of course, the addition of Cooper with the fourth overall pick in this year’s draft – Oakland’s passing attack could be very, very dangerous.
McKenzie also went out and got one of the better blocking tight ends in the league in Lee Smith to help fortify the line and keep Carr upright. He also may have had one of the biggest steals in the draft when he was able to nab tight end Clive Walford in the third round. Walford is an athletic freak of nature who is going to be a match up nightmare for opposing linebackers and safeties. And when you have Walford along with Rivera, who is pretty good as a pass catcher in his own right, the Raiders will have one of the better pass catching tight end groups in the league – perhaps with the potential to be as dominant as the tight end tandems Bill Belichick and the Patriots made famous.
All of that is to say that the Raiders have filled quite a number of holes, have added a lot of depth, and have turned a moribund roster filled with aging stars playing out the strings of their career into potentially, one of the NFL’s most exciting rosters. And in the process, have become a team on the rise – a team that will almost certainly win far more than three games this season.
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Given all of the good the Raiders have done this offseason, as well as over the last few drafts, it’s hard to figure how King came to his conclusions. It would be easy to dismiss it as a writer who’s spent far too much time sniffing white out, or listening to Stephen A. Smith’s asinine ramblings – and Smith had the gall to talk about “contamination.” And it’s very possible that there is an element to both of those in King’s power rankings.
But what it all really and truly boils down to is one word – the word that the 2015 season is all about for the Raiders. And that word is RESPECT.
It’s been so long since anybody wearing a Silver and Black jersey got respect from anybody outside of the Raider Nation, that they might not recognize it if it walked up and bit them. Folks like Stephen A. and unfortunately, Peter King, are building a cottage industry around bashing, marginalizing, and flat out disrespecting the Raiders.
And it’s because rather than look at the present and really analyze what is currently going on in Oakland, Smith, King, and dozens of other writers simply rely on the past as the indicator for the Raiders’ future. It’s pathetically stupid and it’s absolutely lazy journalism, but then, it is what it is.
Perception is everything, and right now, the perception is that thanks to more than a decade of losing, the Raiders are still the same sad, terrible, dysfunctional organization they were in the last few years of Al Davis’ life.
But if Smith, King, or any of their contemporaries had bothered to pay attention, they would see that this Raiders team has about as much in common with those past Raiders teams as Stephen A. Smith has in common with humility and intelligent commentary – which is to say, absolutely nothing.
But as said above, perception is reality and until the Raiders start winning, that perception will not change. It’s only through winning that the Raiders can shake the “loser” label so many seem determined to keep pinning to them and begin the journey back to gaining some respect around the league once more.
So while the Raiders will be playing as hard as they can for those W’s, this team will be playing even harder for the word that this season is all about – RESPECT.