Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Silver and Blackout

Truth hurts.

If enough Raiders fans buy tickets to Sunday's home game against the Texans, the game will sell out, the TV blackout will be lifted - and many Bay Area pro football fans will be crying in their beer.

That's because the alternate game that would be shown in the Bay Area if the Raiders are blacked out is the latest version of the Game of Decade: the 8-0 Patriots against the 7-0 Colts.



I'll be the first to admit it -- I would much rather watch the Pats-Colts game. I live far enough out of the market to where my local CBS affiliate is not ordinarily obligated under NFL broadcast rules to show the Raider games exclusively, but they'll almost definitely show the cellar-dweller game anyway. (It must be embarrassing to work for a TV station that shows fucking infomercials and wacky sports clips during football season. I mean, what the fuck?)

Anyway, despite the braying of the holier-than-thou fanboys in the comments in the Chron article, "loyalty" is a two-way street, especially when you are talking about an entertainment product. The Raiders are "better" only in the sense that last year's joke was literally one of the worst teams ever to take the field in the entire history of the NFL. "Slightly less dismal" does not mean "good" or "fun"; the offensive line is still incompetent on a drive-killing level.

And it's not as if they're finding new and innovative ways to lose, it's the same tedious, incompetent, bonehead shit that does them in. Three-and-out, or a sputter to midfield, then a stalled play and a false start because the canned hams at the line can't fucking count, and then it's third-and-double-digits, which this team simply does not have the tools to overcome eight, ten times per game. And as good as the pass D is, opposing teams know that if they simply run the ball enough, eventually they'll break a big play, because the tackling in the secondary is as bad as their coverage is good. Already second-tier running backs like Larry Johnson and LenDale White have had career days, seven games in.

Put it this way -- they've gotten so pathetic, giving games back to truly bad opponents for no damned reason, that I'm seriously getting over my intense hatred for Randy Moss. Why should he bust his ass, so the play can get called back because the left tackle jumped the snap count again? Why should he let himself get hung up by a quarterback who's scrambling and throwing for his life? Moss is showing that, despite his miserable stint with the Raiders, that he still has world-class skills, he just didn't feel like squandering them on an uninspired crew that kills itself every time with a bunch of Pop Warner mistakes.

The Pats are having fun -- two okey-doke plays in two weeks, on bad teams. That's what good teams do, they fuckin' romp, as Oakland did manage to do over the winless Dolphins. But where the Patriots completely dismantled the 'skins, Oakland would have let them back in the game with a series of stalled drives, fumbled snaps, and a defensive collapse in the final two minutes.

So yeah, since I couldn't afford Sunday Ticket this year, maybe I'll just head to the pub and grab a burger and beer, and watch a couple teams who play like they actually give a shit about the game and the fans. The Colts are very good, and they finally broke their Brady curse long ago and have won the last three matchups, and it's in Indianapolis, but Brady and his crew are bringing in some serious Tecmo Bowl stats.

Prediction: Patriots 49, Colts 31.

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