Raiders: Final home game should’ve been celebrated more

The Oakland Raiders were booed off the field in their final home game in the Coliseum. But despite their late-game collapse, the game should have been celebrated more.

Most of the time, a final game is a celebration of sorts. Normally, that’s the case when a team is preparing to leave their stadium for a new venue, a new city, and a new state.

The most recent example of this would be the Golden State Warriors who had a grand sendoff of Oracle Arena in their final regular-season game last season.

But the scene was much more different in the Oakland Raiders’ final home game of the season, which also served as the last game that the team will play in Oakland for the foreseeable future.

Yet, this didn’t appear to be all that big of a deal to anyone involved. In fact, if it wasn’t for local news affiliates there would’ve been crickets around this game.

Sure, the Raiders left the Bay Area once already in 1982. You could even make the argument that since the Raiders have left once this didn’t need to be a very grand and celebratory sendoff for the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum.

But again, there wasn’t as much noise around this game as there should’ve been. The way this game should’ve been celebrated was by having a primetime slot either on Sunday Night Football or Monday Night Football.

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For example, the San Francisco 49ers played their final home game at Candlestick Park on Monday Night Football in 2013. This was a grand sendoff as the team hosted the Pittsburgh Steelers with the eyes of the nation watching the final game at the stick.

On the other hand, the Raiders’ last game in Oakland was just another game on the NFL Sunday slate of games.

A 1:25 p.m. start time on the West Coast isn’t going to draw many viewers, especially when there was America’s Game of the Week on Fox that featured the Los Angeles Rams and the Dallas Cowboys, which are two teams that are fighting for the playoff lives.

Then, to make matters even worse, the 49ers were hosting the Atlanta Falcons, which will draw more Bay Area sports fans away from the finale of Oakland. If that wasn’t enough, the Minnesota Vikings were visiting the Los Angeles Chargers in another late start.

The other late-game included the Cleveland Browns and the Arizona Cardinals, which featured the last two Heisman Trophy winners. It’s also worth pointing out that the Raiders were facing the Jacksonville Jaguars who haven’t had the season they had imagined.

All these things combined to make the game be very meaningless to many casual NFL fans.

The Raiders lost the game 20-16 to dash their playoff hopes. But that’s a moot point because the Raiders likely wouldn’t have made the postseason anyway.

No matter the circumstances, the city, and loyal fans deserved a better sendoff as the team heads to Las Vegas in 2020 and Sunday just wasn’t it.

But then again, the Raiders are about as dysfunctional as it gets, so maybe there’s no reason to be surprised.