Nowadays, it’s not easy being a Raider fan.
Growing up in California I had a distorted view of sports fandom. My college team was the UCLA Bruins under Coach John Wooden. They won 11 National Championships. My baseball team was the Oakland A’s with Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Gene Tenace, Rawley Fingers, Catfish Hunter, Sal Campenaris, etc. They won championships. My pro-basketball team was the LA Lakers with Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Gail Goodrich, Elgin Baylor, etc. Later with Kareem Abdul Jabbar, James Worthy, and Magic Johnson. They won championships. My football team was the Oakland Raiders, the silver and black attack, just win baby, pride and poise. First Darryl Lamonica then Kenny Stabler, Fred Biletnikof, Double O Otto, Otis Sistrunk from the University of Mars, Hubbard, Pete Banaszak, Marcus Allen, Cliff Branch, John ‘Big Red’ Madden as head coach and so many more. They won championships. Even my high school, the Monache Marauders were undefeated for six consecutive years in wrestling. I was on East Yosemite League championship teams in basketball.
The Dream Team
You can see I was used to my sports teams always winning. I didn’t really understand being a fan of a losing team. My college alma mater is the University of Oklahoma. We kind of have a good history in football, basketball and baseball as well. In fact, the Oakland, then LA, then Oakland again Raiders closed the 1980s with the highest win percentage of ANY team in history in ANY sport! That’s right. The Raiders were the team of the century – no one could rival their franchise win percentage. They won the Super Bowl in 1976, 1980 and 1983! That last one was thirty years ago…sigh…
So now I have proven I am not a bandwagon or a fair weather fan. The last winning season for the Raiders was 2002, some eleven years ago. They can’t seem to get a quarterback and they really suck. Still, I get depressed when they lose. Another downside of losing is that they don’t show them on TV much anymore. So they appear tonight on Monday Night Football against the hated Denver Broncos with horse-faced Elway, the once hated rival now their General Manager. Don’t get me wrong, I really like Peyton Manning, and I don’t have anything against the people, but given the Broncos vs. Raiders rivalry of the past, I see orange and it makes me see red.
I know they are going to lose. 10 of the 11 starting Raider defenders were not on the team last year. Their offense is all new including the QB, offensive line and receivers. The RB, Darren McFadden is unhappy and quite frankly can’t even fall down and get a yard. Peyton Manning picked them apart and could have run up the score even more if he had tried. Instead, they were nice enough to run a lot and use up the clock.
But the insult to injury? The officiating was terrible! Don’t get me wrong, if the game had been closer from good calls, Peyton Manning would have tried harder and beat the stuffing out of us. Still, why the bad calls? Examples: The Raiders get a first down on a very early drive. They are called for ‘offensive pass interference’ of all things. They show it in slow motion – nothing. Then they call some ticky-tack defensive pass interference calls on the Raiders. The very next drive, they show in slow motion a Bronco holding and slapping a Raider receiver out of bounds while trying to catch the ball, well before the play, never looking back at the ball, and it is a no call.
The referees failed to reset the time clock after a play, so they left the Raiders with less than 25 seconds, not 45 seconds. The Raiders complained, the referee saw it but did nothing, and the Raiders had to use a time out. On a Bronco running play, the pulling guard is clearly holding onto the tackler from behind and pulling on him while he tackles the Bronco runner. No holding call? The calls were so one-sided it was shocking. The time clock thing always favors the home team a bit, but over 20 seconds off a 45 second clock?
The Raiders were totally outclassed and would have lost big anyway, but come on refs, enough already. Just because the Broncos are better doesn’t mean they get all no calls and the Raiders get cheated. Give us a break. What is even worse, my daughter and son are…choking back tears…Denver Bronco fans. There, I said it. I have not failed as a fan, but somehow that part of parenting I failed.
Michael Bradley - Time Traveler 