The following was written by the San Jose Mercury News' columnist Tim Kawakami in today's paper..
Are you ready for some 0-16 football?
It ought to be impossible for the Raiders, or any NFL team, to flirt with a season-long skunking. It ought to be crazy to contemplate the phenominon, even for a dwarf franchise like the Raiders.
Just by accident, you're supposed to win a few games, and I know it, because how else did Al Davis' crew win four of them last year?
But Sunday's mind-blowing loss to the Cleveland Browns at McAfee Coliseum was, in every way except the final score, a made-to-order victory for the Raiders.
If they can't win this game, what will it take for them to get victory No. 1? A forfeit? Don King influencing the scorecards? Pacific-10 Conference officials manning the replay booth?
The Raiders didn't have to be good to win this game. The Raiders are a terrible team, but they had a 21-3 lead late in the first half because Cleveland was playing worse.
The Raiders didn't even have to be decent. Coming off a bye week, matched against a winless opponenet traveling across two time zones, all the Raiders had to do was stay upright. All the Raiders had to do was gain the easy yards, pick up the easy turnovers, say thank you, and move along.
Which, it turns out, was asking too much. Is 1-15 asking too much, also?
"Worst thing about it is to put in the amount of work we put into it and come out and give that effort," defensive end Warren Sapp said. "We ran for (almost) 200 yards and we lose the game. It's unheard-of."
They did get 194 rushing yards -- a massive jump from the previous two debacles -- and they got three turnovers from the erratic Cleveland offense as the Raiders built that 21-3 lead.
The Raiders scored their first offensive touchdown of the season -- a 5-yard pass from Andrew Walter to Randy Moss. They took their first lead. They were in control of a game for the first time since last October.
But they couldn't stop the Browns -- who scored 21 consecutive points to finish the game -- or move the ball themselves in the second half.
They couldn't figure out how to challenge a horrendous officials' spot that forced a fourth-and-one, then they couldn't come close to converting on the crucial fourth-and-one try.
"Hell, it's fourth-and-one," said LaMont Jordan, who gained 128 yards but was stopped for a 2-yard loss on the fourth-down play from the Cleveland 30. "That's hard-nosed football. Just so happens their noses happened to be harder than ours."
They couldn't win a game that everybody else in the league would've won. They couldn't win a game that the 2005 Raiders would've won.
Now the Raiders are 0-3 in Art Shell's return engagement, and things are due to get worse, not better.
The Raiders are one of only four winless NFL teams. And of the pitiful, Tampa Bay has a better defense, Tennessee has Vince Young, and Detroit has scored 71 points in four games while the Raiders have scored just 27 -- the lowest three-game scoring output in franchise history.
Plus, none of those teams has Jerry Porter in limbo or Moss short-arming catchable passes or Tom Walsh bungling the offense or a recent history of locker-room mutiny.
"I just don't want to get divisive," safety Stuart Schweigert said. "I saw some things on the field today."
If the Raiders don't get past the 49ers on Sunday, 0-16 suddenly looks very real and very historic. If the Raiders can't get past the 49ers, then hazmat might be summoned to the Raiders complex during the final 12 weeks.
The Raiders went 1-13 in 1962, which was before Davis took over the franchise and the world began to spin on his axis of greatness.
Since then, they've been great and they've been awful, but they've never won fewer than four games in any season. This is new era, however.
Look at this team. Study its flaws. Remember that Walter threw for all of 68 yards in his first start Sunday, and that was against a lousy Cleveland defense. Realize that Cleveland's Charlie Frye -- taken two picks ahead of Walter in the third round of the 2005 draft -- completed eight of his final nine third- and fouth-down passes as he rallied the Browns. And the defense is supposed to be the Raiders' strong part.
Understand that Shell is a good man who gives no indication that he can stop the slide down, down, down.
"We're in a very touchy situation," Jordan said. "We're off to an 0-3 start. I think for the next couple of weeks and the rest of the season, you're going to see what kind of character this organization has, both as coaches and players."
We're seeing it now. We saw it all day Sunday, when the Raiders took the most winnable game on its schedule and turned it into the possible prelude to history.
No team has ever gone 0-16, though, after Sunday, I think the Raiders have a shot at true greatness here.
Brutal..
Are you ready for some 0-16 football?
It ought to be impossible for the Raiders, or any NFL team, to flirt with a season-long skunking. It ought to be crazy to contemplate the phenominon, even for a dwarf franchise like the Raiders.
Just by accident, you're supposed to win a few games, and I know it, because how else did Al Davis' crew win four of them last year?
But Sunday's mind-blowing loss to the Cleveland Browns at McAfee Coliseum was, in every way except the final score, a made-to-order victory for the Raiders.
If they can't win this game, what will it take for them to get victory No. 1? A forfeit? Don King influencing the scorecards? Pacific-10 Conference officials manning the replay booth?
The Raiders didn't have to be good to win this game. The Raiders are a terrible team, but they had a 21-3 lead late in the first half because Cleveland was playing worse.
The Raiders didn't even have to be decent. Coming off a bye week, matched against a winless opponenet traveling across two time zones, all the Raiders had to do was stay upright. All the Raiders had to do was gain the easy yards, pick up the easy turnovers, say thank you, and move along.
Which, it turns out, was asking too much. Is 1-15 asking too much, also?
"Worst thing about it is to put in the amount of work we put into it and come out and give that effort," defensive end Warren Sapp said. "We ran for (almost) 200 yards and we lose the game. It's unheard-of."
They did get 194 rushing yards -- a massive jump from the previous two debacles -- and they got three turnovers from the erratic Cleveland offense as the Raiders built that 21-3 lead.
The Raiders scored their first offensive touchdown of the season -- a 5-yard pass from Andrew Walter to Randy Moss. They took their first lead. They were in control of a game for the first time since last October.
But they couldn't stop the Browns -- who scored 21 consecutive points to finish the game -- or move the ball themselves in the second half.
They couldn't figure out how to challenge a horrendous officials' spot that forced a fourth-and-one, then they couldn't come close to converting on the crucial fourth-and-one try.
"Hell, it's fourth-and-one," said LaMont Jordan, who gained 128 yards but was stopped for a 2-yard loss on the fourth-down play from the Cleveland 30. "That's hard-nosed football. Just so happens their noses happened to be harder than ours."
They couldn't win a game that everybody else in the league would've won. They couldn't win a game that the 2005 Raiders would've won.
Now the Raiders are 0-3 in Art Shell's return engagement, and things are due to get worse, not better.
The Raiders are one of only four winless NFL teams. And of the pitiful, Tampa Bay has a better defense, Tennessee has Vince Young, and Detroit has scored 71 points in four games while the Raiders have scored just 27 -- the lowest three-game scoring output in franchise history.
Plus, none of those teams has Jerry Porter in limbo or Moss short-arming catchable passes or Tom Walsh bungling the offense or a recent history of locker-room mutiny.
"I just don't want to get divisive," safety Stuart Schweigert said. "I saw some things on the field today."
If the Raiders don't get past the 49ers on Sunday, 0-16 suddenly looks very real and very historic. If the Raiders can't get past the 49ers, then hazmat might be summoned to the Raiders complex during the final 12 weeks.
The Raiders went 1-13 in 1962, which was before Davis took over the franchise and the world began to spin on his axis of greatness.
Since then, they've been great and they've been awful, but they've never won fewer than four games in any season. This is new era, however.
Look at this team. Study its flaws. Remember that Walter threw for all of 68 yards in his first start Sunday, and that was against a lousy Cleveland defense. Realize that Cleveland's Charlie Frye -- taken two picks ahead of Walter in the third round of the 2005 draft -- completed eight of his final nine third- and fouth-down passes as he rallied the Browns. And the defense is supposed to be the Raiders' strong part.
Understand that Shell is a good man who gives no indication that he can stop the slide down, down, down.
"We're in a very touchy situation," Jordan said. "We're off to an 0-3 start. I think for the next couple of weeks and the rest of the season, you're going to see what kind of character this organization has, both as coaches and players."
We're seeing it now. We saw it all day Sunday, when the Raiders took the most winnable game on its schedule and turned it into the possible prelude to history.
No team has ever gone 0-16, though, after Sunday, I think the Raiders have a shot at true greatness here.
Brutal..
