| Douglas Benton. 11th October, 2006 - 12:01 pm
 Like Randy Moss, we want out of Oakland. Unlike Moss, we will stay without a fuss and actually care about keeping up our end of the bargain, which is to provide updates on our adopted team.
Moss is just one of the problems to affect the Raiders in what has been a total team effort thus far. The Raiders are last in passing offense and 29th in run defense, which falls directly on the front office because the past two seasons have brought Warren Sapp to shore up the defensive line and Randy Moss to add explosiveness to the passing game.
This brings in the drafting strategy as well, seeing as high draft picks have not paid the dividends experienced by other teams in the same draft slots. When picking in the top 10, you need impact players and in 2004, it appears they missed completely with offensive tackle Robert Gallery from Iowa. Gallery was highly touted coming out by everyone in football, but his development was slow early and has stopped recently. If you can’t play for Art Shell and Jackie Slater, you won’t cut it in this league.
Coaching can only do so much and Art Shell at this point has to be at his wits end. Shell is a good football man and even if his coaching staff leaves some to be desired, it is up to the players to perform. This is why these next four games are a start to deciding which players you want to build on or let go in the coming year.
Salary cap issues will affect some of the moves, but candidates to find another team are Moss, Brooks, Jerry Porter, Robert Gallery, and create a mandate not to sign any marquee free agents for the foreseeable future. I believe players you can build on are the secondary and linebacking corps because the young talent of Thomas Howard, Michael Huff, Kirk Morrison, and Fabian Washington has shown good potential. I also like Jordan as the face of the franchise because he is a stand-up guy that will always play hard.
The coaching staff is also a plus with Shell and one of the better defensive coordinators in Rob Ryan. Offensive coordinator Tom Walsh should go and be replaced with a young, innovative mind that can add some spunk to the offense. A perfect candidate is USC offensive coordinator Lane Kiffen, who has shown he can use speed and power running to go along with a balanced passing game.
It is a shame, but the next 12 games will be more of an open try-out to see who really wants to be in Oakland. It wouldn’t hurt either if they took a page from their Bay Area neighbors who took their lumps but are better for it now and in the future. |
