About Those Raiders
We now have conclusive proof that not only do the Raiders hate themselves, but God isn’t fond of them, either.
In San Diego, the Raiders played a damned good game. Randy Moss seemed engaged, the defense played spectacularly, and the Brooks looked reasonably good. In fact, they played so well that they had a touchdown lead, were in scoring position, and looked to be on the verge of upsetting one of the league’s best teams.
Remember what I said about having faith that the Raiders would always work hard to beat themselves? That still stands.
A combination of bad play (Brooks’ interception with the Raiders in that scoring position), bad penalties (the major face mask that pushed the Raiders into an extremely long second down with the score tied up), and God’s own vengeance for all of Al Davis’ wrongdoing in life (the demented “illegal forward pass” that left San Diego with a first down instead of turning over the ball on either downs or a fumble) made sure that there would be no celebrating in Raider-land this week. It was one of the strangest and most deflating ends of a game that I’ve seen in quite some time. It also left KC and Denver fans disappointed that the Raiders couldn’t pull off just one amazing win to keep the race for the AFC West a close one.
All my personal biases aside, I can’t shake the feeling that San Diego really didn’t earn their win today. Of course, with the Raiders working hard to beat themselves, you can’t blame San Diego for taking them up on the offer.