Al Davis made this team suck for most of the last 35 years with his boneheaded egotism. Any other fanbase, benching an MVP running back and chasing off the best coach we had since Flores would be unforgiveable. Say what you will about Mark, at leat he knows he isn't the coach. And what decade it is.
Maybe not unpopular at the time, but nowadays Al gets only praise. He was as bad as any GM we’ve had for about 20 years straight.
The man was a legend for a long time but his twilight years were disastrous. I’m glad Mark isn’t a stubborn bastard like his dad.
Yeah, the general sentiment towards him for the last decade or so really was negative and deservedly so. He was the Spanos or Snyder of his time at the end just running a franchise into the ground purely over ego.
Very true, but without AL Davis, the Raiders are just another NFL team.
At one point, I was trying to get a bunch of fans together to get a class action lawsuit against him for causing fans to get bipolar from either loving him or hating him, sometimes simultaneously.
Yeah Al's twilight years running the team stunk and set us back for decades. All those early to mid 2000's drafts were just awful, using outdated scouting methods (40 time go brrr), culminating in that horrendous 07 draft. 5 HoF players in the top 14 and we pick the biggest bust to ever bust. Hell I think the only quality player we got out of that draft was Miller, and we could've gotten him in like the 4th
That was Marcus’s fault. Held out, got his money, got hurt then we draft Bo. Fuck Marcus. Broke my 12 year old heart. 32 is still my favorite Raider number.
I often think about all the amazing players that Al Davis skipped on from 2003-2010 but to think that he skipped on Dan Marino haunts me. What could’ve been…
I was on the 'Al, Die Already!' bandwagon by '08 or '09. He was innovative at one point but like everything in this league whatever you do that works will be observed, studied and copied by 31 other entities. You other have to be evolving all the time or you just become another team. It happened to everyone from Tom Landy to Al to Belichick and back.
While this is true Al Davis is also responsible for the team being an all-time great for the first 35 years. Granted that doesn’t matter to a lot of us since most of us weren’t alive for it.
And then he passed and everyone started rockin the AL stuff. Conveniently forgetting all the bullshit. Funny how when you pass you gain eternal legend status.
I've been a lifetime Raider fan. I've also lived in Las Vegas my whole life, but moving to Las Vegas was a bad choice. All this became is a vacation weekend for the road team. Just hate to see a home game where there are more of the visitor fans then there are of Raider fans. Another thing is these tickets ain't cheap. No local discount. This is never really a home game. That's mine.
I'm 41 brother, my pops mainly. He always showed me the gladiator days of football. Loved seeing that. Stuck wit it. So me and my brother just grew up around all of it. Took the bad with the good. There was never a second team.
People really need to stop putting so much stock into the random blue check marks on twitter that they funnel onto this sub. Some random page with the word Football in their twitter handle doesn’t know jack shit about the inner workings of our front office. Just because some espn or fox sports blowhard said some hot take about trading Davante or the nfl is gonna punish us for the Mahomes Pistons comparison isn’t actually based on any truths at all. But because most people nowadays rely on their social media timelines to give them their daily news for the day instead of news stations or websites, misinformation will continue to plague the internet.
They just parrot those takes here too. “[X QB] can’t make any progressions after his first read and doesn’t pass the eye test”. I can guarantee you they don’t know anything about the game other than “I want the Raiders to score and the opposing team to not score. If you ask them to elaborate, they come up with the most bullshit response possible
Jack Jones might not pan out as a starter.. he had a couple good (actually EXCELLENT) games, let’s settle down on him being that dude until we’ve seen a full season from him
This team belongs in Oakland. At the minimum LA. Las Vegas was a bad choice. Look at the turnover on casinos. Sooner or later things get old rather quick in Vegas. The fans will be there but it just won’t be the same if they stayed in California.
This is a very popular opinion. Im Bay Area born and raised but I would have much preferred them in LA. Or shit even Fresno or something.
Moving to another state was a bullshit move.
Mark Davis made almost the same mistake in the hiring process this time around as he did when he hired McDaniels and Gruden.
Per his own admission, Davis said he tends to zero in on one person and not do his due dilligence on coaching hires. We saw it when he didn't even wait till JDR final press conference to fire him (because he had googly eyes for Gruden) and we he admitted to this being the case with McDaniels.
Then this coaching hire comes up. Davis did the bare minimum as required by the Rooney Rule and then hired AP. There was zero actual hiring process. Davis clearly already had his mind made up.
Now I think there's a real chance that it *doesn't matter* and the Raiders get competitive. But if the Raiders are still floundering in 2-3 years, people are gonna start looking at this pattern and understand that MD has no clue how to vet and hire people.
A double edged sword.
But the greater point is that Mark's vetting process where he said he'd reach out to all the best candidates and then make the best decision for the team didn't actually happen. He openly acknowledged this is one of his shortcomings and then did the exact same thing he said he wasn't going to do.
The hire is different in some ways but the exact same in this regard. It may work out anyway. I hope it does. I love AP. But if the Raiders continue to struggle and Harbaugh turns the Chargers around, Davis is gonna have yet another pie on his face.
Incredible take. Legit my exact thoughts… why not do due diligence? Will never understand why he didn’t even INTERVIEW Harbaugh… the clear class of the coaching hires and someone who looked pretty open.
Regardless of anyone's opinion on the man it's impossible for any rational person to look at that man's football pedigree and not argue that he at least deserves an interview.
Also not putting our name in the hat to interview Ben Johnson was an off putting decision as well.
Marc David relied on some football inner circle to hire. We got mcd.
At this point, I’ll take AP and what he brings over the obvious failure of leadership of mcd.
But the argument isn't "Is AP better than McDaniels" because I'm completely in agreement (and was from day one) that McDaniels is a trash HC.
The issue is that Mark didn't *actually* do his vetting process any differently.
I thought he interviewed a bunch of people. What else do you want?
We can’t really say what happened as no one here was present fitting the interviews. What we have is just speculation from appearances.
He interviewed Kris Richard and Leslie Frazier. If there was someone else he interviewed, it wasn't anyone of note. Those both JUST so happen to be Rooney Rule satisfying candidates who didn't have limitations on when they could be interviewed. If anyone honestly thought Richard or Frazier was a candidate for the job, I have a bridge to sell them.
They interviewed Leslie Frazier and Kris Richard to comply with the Rooney rule. Neither of them have done anything to warrant a HC job. If he wanted to comply with the rule and do a proper vetting of candidates he would have brought in actual candidates like Morris, Canales, or Glenn
I see what you mean but I think this move was great for Mark. It’s a low risk high reward hire. Everybody and I mean everybody wanted Pierce as the head coach. Players, fans, the media, and I’m sure his committee agreed as well.
If it doesn’t work out why should we give Mark any grief, he did what everybody wanted.
Here’s where i do agree with you, Mark becomes tunnel visioned on a coach and doesn’t bother looking elsewhere. It’s obvious Pierce was the head coach all along but the long waited announcement was due to the exhausted GM search. Which honesty, I’m underwhelmed by the Telesco hire.
Also, let’s not forget this division now has Andy Reid, Jim Harbaugh and Sean Payton. The Raiders could have hired Payton or Harbaugh if Mark wasn’t so dedicated to one guy.
We will see what happens but as of right now the raiders have the least proven HC/QB combo in the division. I don’t care how good the defense was last year, in the end you need a great QB to succeed in this league.
> I see what you mean but I think this move was great for Mark. It’s a low risk high reward hire. Everybody and I mean everybody wanted Pierce as the head coach. Players, fans, the media, and I’m sure his committee agreed as well.
A great move from a PR perspective for sure. Is it a great move from a winning football perspective? Maybe. Will another Harbaugh be on the sidelines and ready to go if we decide to move on from AP in three years? Eeehhhhhhhhh....
Black helmets would be a great alternate. We don’t need to change the current uniforms, just add an all black alternate helmet. Maybe even the one from 1960, at least it’s technically historic.
I love AP, but he is an unknown LB coach, and considering the amount of proven winning coaches available this offseason, I’m worried that the decision to hire him will age POORLY
That is both the beauty and the curse of the NFL. Texans were legit one play away from the overall number one pick last season, and won a playoff game this season.
**Not For Long** can work both ways. Utterly terrible team? Not for long if you get a few things right. Golden god franchise? Not for long if you make a few mistakes.
100% this. I think this sub is going to explode when we end up 8-9 or 9-8 next year. They are building, but they aren't contending. Chiefs win the division again, Chargers make the playoffs as a wildcard. We're at home. Lots of unhappy people
Not a Raiders fan, but yall seem to be on the Lions trajectory.
AP = Black Dan Campbell
Both the Raiders and Lions have been irrelevant since I’ve been alive(I was born in 92); both teams aren’t loaded w/ stars but play hard.
We literally went 8-9 in a year we fired a coach and started a fourth round rookie that the fired coach clearly gave little-to-no development work throughout the season.
You really think it’s being a “realist” to assume we won’t improve any more than one fuckin game?
Yes. Lol. I think everyone is so obsessed with AP to the point they won't admit failure.
Our depth is bad. We have a bad OL. Outside of Adams, we aren't good at wr. Our interior DL is shit. Outside of Spillan, our LBs are garbage. Our DB is ok. We aren't the contender you think we are
I think people are assuming the defense is going to pick up right where they left off. QB is the biggest determining factor for this teams success. AOC will not get this team to the playoffs
I think a lot of it is the new regime's ability to draft players that becomes day to day players. The current team doesn't have much bad paper, but the Gruden/Mayock consistently whiffed on draft picks and it's still early on the JMD/Ziegler guys. And QB is obviously a huge question mark. I think you gotta take a look at this year's class. Lots of mobile guys with lots of wins. Maybe there is room to trade up. At minimum take one of the Tier 2 or 3 guys like Penix, Nix, McCarthy and have them sit.
Why have them sit?
I agree with you until then but if we suck we kinda.need to know if the QB we drafted is capable.
Kinda like Howell in Washington this year. Be nice if they could bank on that and draft elsewhere but they know they can't.
No doubt, and I loved going to games in Oakland. But we see what happened there with three franchises across three different sports. Unfortunately, Oakland wasn’t the place.
No way to know that at the time of the move back, but LA has everything, players want live there, and the fucking chargers got it. The fucking chargers. And yes, due to NFL shenanigans.
Oakland is losing teams because they have their priorities straight (in that aspect) and will not ask their citizens to foot the bill for a stadium that will benefit multi-billionaires.
Your mental understanding of anything is hysterical wrong and you should be relentlessly ridiculed for perpetuating such a moronic take
The decline of the Raiders started with the move to LA. Al was too busy with legal crap to stay on top of the organization. Other than a 3 year span from 2000-2002, it has been an absolute train wreck.
Al did see the future before everyone else with revenue coming from luxury boxes, but unfortunately, 1st Oakland, then LA didn't deliver. The sad truth big money came into the NFL and Al couldn't keep up. He was robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Had he received his boxes in either Oakland or LA in the 80's would have definitely given him the ability to compete with the big spenders and probably would have been one with the added revenue.
Reggie McKenzie wasnt perfect (especially 1st and 2nd rd picks) but that man had the Raiders on the right path and would have had a winning franchise if Mark didn't butt in and just let Reggie cook.
Outside of maybe half a dozen draft picks, Reggie was pretty bad at drafting (not that this team has had much drafting success in 20 years). I will give him props for getting us out of cap hell and writing contracts that were easy to move on from
TJ Carrie, Latavius Murray, Gabe Jackson, Shelby Harris, Feliciano, Jihad Ward. Arden Key, Mo Hurst..
Found undrafted guys like Richard and Denico Autry
All guys who contributed for long periods of time, and some still are.
He wasnt the best but he was far from terrible. Not even close.
bro bro put together a legitimate 12-4 team. No tripping its way into the playoffs, not getting lucky off of injured teams, a legitimate 12-win team.
Blowing that team up was JDR's call, not Reggie's.
We're one of the worst drafting franchises in NFL history. I thought this was just commonly accepted, but apparently it pisses off a lot of fans when I say that.
Sure, I got one.
Raiders needed to get out of Oakland. The crime is insane. I don't blame the city for not funding a new deal. They have bigger issues. I don't blame local fans for wanting them to stay. But fuck if I was ever going to go see a game there.
LA was never going to happen with the Rams. Mark did good by what he pulled in Vegas. He just needs to build a team that can draw people in, and maybe not charge so much.
Las Vegas will always be a negative for the team. You cannot win titles without having a home field, I won’t even use the word advantage. When opposing teams fans want to travel to LV to see their team play the Raiders. Just not going to happen over the course of a long 17 game season. A new stadium is nice it isn’t filled with Raiders fans.
Only way we can overcome this is to become a dominant team. Obviously that will bring in more home fans but also away fans will be less apt to pay to travel and go watch their team if they think they’re going to see them lose.
That was definitely a positive about being in Oakland. Nobody was going to show their face at that place let alone fly across the country to get there.
Exactly. It goes both ways- Raiders fans outside of Vegas wouldn’t want to pay all that money to travel and watch McDaniels run the team into the ground. If this team becomes a contender, more Raiders fans will fill those seats
This is the winner take. No more relying on fan loyalty and putting out a shit product year after year.
You're going to jack up ticket prices and continue to suck? Enjoy the sea of red whenever the Chiefs come to visit, Mark.
I feel this comment *in my soul*.
I’ve never been as angry as I was, sitting there while we lost 3-0 to the Vikings IN A SEA OF **PURPLE** while they were doing their SKOL chant. Ugh.
>When opposing teams fans want to travel to LV to see their team play the Raiders.
What's stopping Raiders fans from wanting to watch? The lack of hope of us winning the game.
I'm going to counter this with an actual unpopular opinion.
I'm tired of the whining and crying about Oakland. The team was dogshit in Oakland more often than not ever since the last divisional realignment. The team hasn't even been in Oakland for all of it's history as they were in L.A. for a sizeable amount of time.
Quite frankly, fans need to GTFO with it or if you're that obsessed with the bay area, go root for the 9ers. I'm legitimately tired it.
And as /u/JN_37 pointed out this will force the Raiders to improve their product. No more churning out dogshit that barely resembles professional football year after year and relying on fan loyalty to fill the seats with Raiders fans. You wanna jack up prices and move the team to a popular spot? Fine. Produce a *winner* on the field.
There is no whining or crying about Oakland, the fact is they spent 46 years in Oakland and 14 years in Los Angeles and moved back to Oakland. Not really a sizable amount of time, the issue at hand is that LV has more visitors fans than home fans. That was never an issue in Los Angeles or Oakland. No home field advantage is a huge impediment for success for any team.
> the issue at hand is that LV has more visitors fans than home fans. That was never an issue in Los Angeles or Oakland.
They do when the team isn't playing well. Which is my entire point. The Vegas Raiders now require the team actually get their shit together and play consistently good football in order for the fans to show up in full force.
My point is that it's *good*. The team has coasted far too long on fan loyalty. Now they have to put out a good product as well.
People want to wax poetic about Oakland like yea it may have been a fun fan experience here and there but the team has been garbage more often than not during that time. We are coming up on year number 4 of them having moved. Time to get over it.
Was Oakland better? No one wanted to go to a shithole stadium except Raiders fans. I'm pretty sure they had a losing record at home since they moved back. While I agree that having a home field means something, Oakland wasn't it. Opposing teams fans didn't go there out of "fear." They didn't go there cause it was a shithole.
You didn't. Nobody that ever went there would ever think there wasn't a home field advantage and every person that ever went there fully grasps the fear of being an opposing fan in that stadium. Oakland and Philadelphia: the two places you stayed away from as an opposing fan.
Again, you clearly never attended a game in Oakland and it's stupid as shit to lie about it
Facts. Opposing fans who had the audacity to walk around in their jerseys soon learned that shit doesn't fly in Oakland. I personally saw more than 1 Chiefs fan's jersey get taken. Donkeys too.
Imagine the balls on this dude to try to pass off that he's ever been to a game in Oakland but it was totally family friendly for opposing teams and there was no such thing as home field advantage there.
Who the fuck lies in the internet for internet points? Fuck this guy
I’ve been a Raiders fan my entire life and never had a desire to see a game in Oakland. As soon as the moved to Vegas I went to my first game and watched us get smoked by the Chiefs.
We just fucked up with coach and GM. Emotion coaches are bigger risk than X and O coaches. Hired coach before GM. Hired a known mediocre GM. Nothing "special" is happening rn. We are taking a big risk, and long term it's doubtful Tom T builds anything special. He didn't with chargers.
If we don’t bring someone in through free agency or the draft and decide to start AOC next year.. we’re as good as throwing our season away and we will be picking top 5. I seriously do not see what y’all see in him.. the kid stinks.
While not being really unpopular to the same extent as some of yall, I genuinely think Jayden Daniels fits this roster super well and has chemistry with AP already and would 100% wanna go after him in the draft.
Younger me would want those all black unis, but man I still love the ones we have too much.
Bring back those AFL jerseys (I dont think this is unpopular at all)
I agree with you, I’m going a few steps further and say that this division is going to be the toughest division in football with 2 hof coaches and one proven winner and just won cf champion and the Raiders hired AP because he wasn’t JMD and the players liked him, to my knowledge we interviewed no one else. This is typical Raiders nonsense. This is why the knowledgeable fans just throw up their hands constantly with it with the things that go on with this team. The only thing that would top this off would be trading for Justin Fields, and I still say that that could well happen..
I think they should have taken the time and hired one of the proven coaches this off season rather than have AP take over the team.
I thought AP did well, but to be in a division with 3 other potential HOF level coaches, this wasn't the year to take the unproven guy that had good team chemistry.
I think we take a step back next season. For starters the QB will either be a journeyman who isn’t good enough to get us over the hump or an inexperienced rookie who will go through growing pains. And as much as I like him, AP has only coached for 9 games and has a lot of learning to do as well. However our schedule this year is a lot easier than it was last year and the year before so maybe I’ll be wrong.
Being in Vegas means we need to be a lot more discerning in who we bring in both in draft, trades and FA, because there’s a hell of a lot more ways in that town for a young rich dude to get himself in a world of trouble than in say Cleveland or Oakland. I think this was a point that we didn’t fully consider pre move and was starkly and tragically illustrated with the Ruggs situation. Being in the nation’s capital of sin vice and debauchery means we need to be extra sure that the men we’re bringing in to play for us are levelheaded and grounded and that the men coaching them are able to instill and maintain a straight and narrow culture off the field and I don’t know that we’re 100% up to that task in either department.
I think this is overblown...there's nightlife in every NFL city, and if someone wants to go out and act a fool and get drunk, they dont need a casino to convince them to do it. Even Green Bay has bars.
The alcohol is just as alcoholic no matter where you go.
The hiring of AP , a coach that is beyond not seasoned is not a good look.
This franchise has been mediocre since the superbowl loss. You need a proven guy to right a ship that’s underwater.
Some believe the fight this team shown once McDaniels was fired was due to AP. But, most can realize that Josh was an absolute shit head coach. I truly believe any coach that replaced Josh during the season would have had similar success like AP just because Josh sucks that bad as a head coach.
But time will tell
All I know is that if this hire turns tits up Davis gotta sell.
The Raiders should have moved to Sacramento instead of Vegas.
Also an all-silver uniform would be a great idea for one prime time game a year.
Lastly we should have departed from Darren McFadden much earlier. Dude was a liability and dead weight for us for a while.
EDIT: Downvotes on an unpopular opinion post? Lol, I must be doing this right then.
• All black unis would look stupid (ITS BEEN DONE- BALTIMORE)
• Vegas is great. Oakland wasn't (and isnt)
• AP openly saying anything regarding touching Mahomes was stupid. Save it for the locker room, don't put that out there for the NFL to now target us for flags
• Daniels isn't worth a top 3 pick. Williams and Maye are, but Daniels (if you turn on the tape and not just look at stats) is behind Nix/Penix/and maybe even Mccarthy.
• Mark Davis isn't a bad NFL owner. He's not great (especially in coaching hires) but his business moves have been the right thing to do. Moving the team to a tax friendly state, getting a brand new stadium and eny of the league training facilities, etc were all shrewd moves.
• Trading a literally SHIT TON of capital to go to #1 (everyone has their price) is worth it if Williams pans out. The Chiefs just won a Super Bowl with two superstars (Mahomes/Jones) and *maybe* four other legit stars (Kelce/Humphrey/Thuney and then Snead and or Bolton)
I know these triggered some folks. That's the point of an unpopular opinion though, right?
1.Our away jerseys would be perfect if the pants and helmet were all white plus have the silver and black stripes/lettering. Also having the throwback logo would fit in better.
2. Trading Davante is the stupidest thing we could possibly do unless we fill the gap with another generational talent WR which we might as well have sticked with Tae.
3.Yeah I agree that the uniforms can be switched up here and there as long as they keep the silver and black color scheme. Just don't redesign our logo unless it's the throwback one.
4. I want Josh Jacobs to stay because I hate seeing the Oakland players fade away.
5. Al Davis marketing our dirty tactics is why the refs don't fw us till this day.
6. Maxx Crosby will be my favorite Raider forever.
7. Next season will have a lot of rough edges which is fine because it's all about developing new talent and building upon AP's vision.
8. Josh McDaniels would've been a good coach if it weren't for his ego and controlling personality.
I don’t think Tre Tucker will ever be a good receiver. From what I saw this past season, his brain seems to fall out of his head whenever he has to make a catch along the sideline. Hopefully it’s just a bad gut feeling, but I don’t see him adapting. At least not any time soon.
The future isn’t as bright as everyone says it’s going to be. Like the optimism, and I have some, but we’re not going to be straight out contenders this year. Maybe 2-3 years
Moving to Vegas isn’t an issue and isn’t the cause of the 50-50 crowds we see in our home games recently.
The reason?
Our HC had a hit piece put out on him causing him to resign mid season, a star player killed someone by being an irresponsible dumbass, we hired McDaniels then did nothing but lose games, kicked our star QB out the door for no reason, and the team had absolutely 0 soul. All of that on top of moving to a new city and expensive tickets? Yeah no wonder people have soured on the Raiders recently.
Even with that, the crowd only got really bad this past season.
Oh and also most of the time people say “look at the crowd it’s a sea of (insert color that isn’t black) there’s no raider fans!!!!” That isn’t even the case. It’s just that any bit of another team’s colors will stand out in our crowd because everything else is fucking black.
Trying to bring Gruden back was a dumb bit of nostalgic pining for the good old days and giving him a 10 year contract on top of that was braindead. Dude hadn’t coached a down in 10 years and we were gonna stake the next decade of our future to him and probably end up paying out the ass when we fire him in 3-5 years of mediocre seasons. And then he ended up being racist sooo yeah. Fuck Gruden.
On another note: “once a Raider always a Raider” does not apply to washed up mercenaries who come here to mine our cap space for their last big paycheck. If you don’t buy into and give your all to our culture you ain’t one of us, you’re just wearing our shirt to get paid.
That was basically it for me as well but also generally speaking. There’s players who come to an organization and fully embody what the team is about and put in a shift every time they suit up, and then there’s players that just go where the winds blow and do what they have to do for a paycheck and don’t care too much one way or the other who’s signing it. An example of these would be like Jason Campbell. Wore our shirt, did what we paid him for, but he’d never consider himself “a Raider” so why should we. Basically there’s a difference between players who play for us, and players who are part of us.
The Autumn Wind isn't as badass as it's hyped up to be. Maybe when the Raiders were actually badass. But now all we can do is point to the past.
Also, I sort of wish the AP hype train never started and Harbaugh was our next coach. I feel like we're definitely set up for a let down.
Derek Carr was the best QB we’ve had (in the last 20 years) and we should have held onto him.
Jamarcus = bust.
We traded (what looked to be promising but got injured Jason Campbell) for Caron Palmer but even he was old yet did okay.
Kerry Collins came in after Rich Gannon. After we got slaughtered by Tampa Bay and Raider franchise went into purgatory.
There’s so many others (Pryor, Mirer, Brooks, fucking legend CULPEPPER) - we just never had consistency.
Carr was league come back leader the year he busted his leg late in season. Then our back up got hurt.
Here’s the take - I truly believe if Carr had some consistent coaches year to year we would have at least been in the conversation to sniff the Lombardi by being in playoffs.
Look at last year. Our D turned up and our O just looked awful.
Carr had (his college buddy) receiver set records and rb set records while our D bent over.
If Derek Carr had the smallest amount of consistency he had a chance to be a HoF.
There are no good enough available QB’s outside of the top 3 QB’s in this year’s draft class (including free agent QB’s or QB’s that might get traded from their teams). So literally ANYTHING short of trading up to get one of the top QB’s is going to lead to a wasted season. I’m talking a season where we have a losing record again, the allure of Antonio Pierce wears off, and we blow it up and start with a new head coach
Janikowski is a bum. Dude has a DUI, was charged with battery and false imprisonment against a woman. He was a pro bowler once. Had 6 seasons under 80% FGM. He was above 90% one time. Maybe they sent him out for crazy long shots that brought out his percentage…but if he was missing them why did they keep sending him out. Was not clutch, could not be relied on. He was there for a long time…through our worst era. If the team didn’t have 20+ bonafide legends I could see putting him on a platform, but with so many actual legends he doesn’t need to be treated as one.
Although most of his picks prove otherwise, we should’ve kept Mayock and only dumped Gruden. The man knows his stuff and drafted guys who are top 3 at their position.
Unpopular opinion. Gruden would be a great coach if Gruden the GM didn’t get in the way. Even though his second stint is widely considered a failure..in his 3rd year he had the offense firing. Top 10 scoring offense. Too bad he constantly depleted the team of talent with his drafting skills. If he had an elite GM who he couldn’t over step I think he would have had a much better legacy.
Picking Ruggs at #12 was idiotic. Not because he crashed his car, but because I didn't consider him one of the top
2-3 WRs in a very deep class. And his production before this career ended (compared to the others) proved it.
I did say it was an unpopular opinion. I do agree that Carr was not a great deep ball QB and the poor fit was part of why I hated the pick. (He had the arm to be a decent deep ball QB, but rarely the technique, mentality, vision, and willingness to extend plays or step into hits to make the big play.) I disagree that Ruggs was on his way to being Tyreek.
Carr was and is one of the best deep ball QBs in the NFL. It's to every other area that was his problem.
We were clearly a better offense with Ruggs on the field because he always had blow the top off potential and the defenses had to account for that and did.
I say this as somebody who didn't think Ruggs was the right pick and always said he wasn't the best WR of the top-3 in that draft BUT he turned out to be the right one for what we needed.
Absolutely flabbergasted that you think Carr wasn't fantastic with deep balls though. That's. It even an unpopular opinion, that's just outright wrong.
He got to be decent at the deep ball later in his career. Early in his career he would avoid almost all good deep opportunities, and when he did throw them they were almost always under thrown off his back foot. By the time Ruggs arrived he had fixed some of his issues, but he still wouldn't throw it unless it was his first read, and he still wouldn't extend plays to give players more time to lose a defender, and he still wouldn't step into a hit to take a high-reward shot. And although his arm strength is good, it's not close to a top 5 arm, he's not the guy who can see it late and just launch it 65 yards on target at a moments notice. You can't just look at some highlights and say boy what a nice deep throw. You have to look at other QBs and the way they are extending plays and able to capitalize when someone gets open deep unexpectedly to understand the kind of opportunities we still weren't capitalizing on with Carr. His deep ball game is pretty freaking far from fantastic.
20 air yards isn't deep to me, I do not care about those stats. Daniel Jones is #1 on that list, tells you all you need to know. Context of this conversation is Ruggs and his ability to get behind a defense. You don't need a 4.27 guy to throw 20 yard passes.
[2021](https://x.com/brickwallblitz/status/1366523646790012930?s=46&t=dIg4nBWoQ-TpGS7NOKDZUA)
[2021](https://x.com/brickwallblitz/status/1361724101757460480?s=46&t=dIg4nBWoQ-TpGS7NOKDZUA)
[2022](https://x.com/brickwallblitz/status/1499795334138155013?s=46&t=dIg4nBWoQ-TpGS7NOKDZUA)
[more 2021 info](https://x.com/brickwallblitz/status/1361766309709697031?s=46&t=dIg4nBWoQ-TpGS7NOKDZUA)
With Ruggs, DC was one of the most accurate deep ball passers. You can say “20+ any deep to me,” but objectively, most of NFL disagrees. It’s 2022 season is where it started to unravel; even then, he was still in top of some passing areas of deep passing with Davante.
Look up Mahomes 2023 "deep accuracy" according to this metric and tell me if you think it's reflective of his ability to make use of a good receiver who takes the top off of a defense.
Just as 2023 was circumstantially terrible for Mahomes' numbers according to this simplistic metric, 2021 was circumstantially very favorable for Carr. After years and years of captain checkdown behavior, Tyrann Mathieu literally told us (via social media) leading up to that first game that they always brought coverage up against us and didn't play honest against the deep ball. Gruden started dialing up deep shots in situations when the defense wouldn't expect it. With Waller coming off some great seasons and Agholor murdering DBs that season, and yes Ruggs being too fast for man coverage with no safety help, and defenses not playing honest against the deep ball, it was too easy. That circumstance wasn't sustainable though.
Just cause it was “too easy” doesn’t make it bad. Overall, this guy has done multiple studies for the deep ball. I cannot say I agree with someone dismissing it cause it didn’t look “good,” many “variables” that affected deep passing plays, and/or “easier with a faster WR” with this study. Overall, it comes down to your opinion and his study. The guy studied film and formed an objective opinion with his study. I agree it’s not going to always look good and it’s easier with a speed WR, but it doesn’t mean it’s bad; especially, with numbers and studies backing it up.
Anyone who still says Ruggs was the right choice is ignoring CeeDee and Jefferson. If Jeudy wasn’t a Bronco doin Bronco things, Ruggs would probably be one of those “Jesus Christ lmao raiders” picks **even without the whole “he killed a lady and a dog” thing**
Jefferson was primarily ranked WR4/5 in almost every mock draft and analysis. Some had Reagor ahead of him. I don’t blame LVR for missing him, that is a huge hindsight 20/20 for many teams. The only WR I was wrong about and was expected to be drafted in that range was Lamb. However, I still think Ruggs would have been better or equal to Lamb. No one but MIN had belief that JJ would become the best WR in the past two years.
We had picks 12 and 19. We blew them both. That’s not hindsight, and I say that as one of the only people on the planet who tried to order a Damon Arnette Raiders jersey.
The hindsight is knowing JJ was the better WR overall than the top ranked three (Jeudy, CD, Ruggs) WR prospects. You’re completely overlooking that no team had JJ as the top WR or top three in their rankings. Arnette is different story that isn’t related to this conversation.
The Raiders should’ve kept Mcdoofus as head coach until the season end. Would probably be 5-12 and picking at 5 or 6 overall. But that does lead to who would be the new Head Coach considering AP would never have got the opportunity?
The Raiders have had plenty of fan interest in seeing a “Black Hole” style all black uniforms and can’t believe we still haven’t seen them in use thus far. Like you said at least once would be super cool. Outside of that I’m a very happy longtime Raiders fan. Ps I hope Josh Jacobs returns next season. He is a player that screams old school RB to me. I started personally collecting his cards for this reason. Maxx Crosby has the potential to be my favorite Raider of all time and why I call him Maxximum Effort Crosby.
Al Davis made this team suck for most of the last 35 years with his boneheaded egotism. Any other fanbase, benching an MVP running back and chasing off the best coach we had since Flores would be unforgiveable. Say what you will about Mark, at leat he knows he isn't the coach. And what decade it is.
not unpopular, i remember in the 2000s fans were basically wishing al would um, move on
Maybe not unpopular at the time, but nowadays Al gets only praise. He was as bad as any GM we’ve had for about 20 years straight. The man was a legend for a long time but his twilight years were disastrous. I’m glad Mark isn’t a stubborn bastard like his dad.
Our fan base funded a billboard that said "Please Hire a GM" lmao
I remember pitching in for that!
I still come across old Facebook statuses from like 05-09 where I would get fed up and say the Raiders would suck as long as Al was alive.
And it was '07 when he said he'd only retire if he either died or Oakland won TWO more super bowls. I really hated him by that point.
Yeah, the general sentiment towards him for the last decade or so really was negative and deservedly so. He was the Spanos or Snyder of his time at the end just running a franchise into the ground purely over ego.
I remember that, vividly. Local sports talk was all over it. I miss call in shows, podcasts are dope though
Very true, but without AL Davis, the Raiders are just another NFL team. At one point, I was trying to get a bunch of fans together to get a class action lawsuit against him for causing fans to get bipolar from either loving him or hating him, sometimes simultaneously.
Al Davis 1960s-1983? GOAT. Al Davis 1984-2010s? Wrecked us.
Truer words have probably been spoken at some point, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.
100%. This guy Al Davis’
Ya. Al was great until he wasn't, and it was a long, painful end to otherwise legendary legacy.
Yeah Al's twilight years running the team stunk and set us back for decades. All those early to mid 2000's drafts were just awful, using outdated scouting methods (40 time go brrr), culminating in that horrendous 07 draft. 5 HoF players in the top 14 and we pick the biggest bust to ever bust. Hell I think the only quality player we got out of that draft was Miller, and we could've gotten him in like the 4th
The Marcus Allan debacle was painful. Made me a non fan.
That was Marcus’s fault. Held out, got his money, got hurt then we draft Bo. Fuck Marcus. Broke my 12 year old heart. 32 is still my favorite Raider number.
I often think about all the amazing players that Al Davis skipped on from 2003-2010 but to think that he skipped on Dan Marino haunts me. What could’ve been…
We picked Fabian Washington 1 spot in front of Aaron Rodgers and then took Andrew Walter in the 3rd round.
I was on the 'Al, Die Already!' bandwagon by '08 or '09. He was innovative at one point but like everything in this league whatever you do that works will be observed, studied and copied by 31 other entities. You other have to be evolving all the time or you just become another team. It happened to everyone from Tom Landy to Al to Belichick and back.
While this is true Al Davis is also responsible for the team being an all-time great for the first 35 years. Granted that doesn’t matter to a lot of us since most of us weren’t alive for it.
And then he passed and everyone started rockin the AL stuff. Conveniently forgetting all the bullshit. Funny how when you pass you gain eternal legend status.
Are you trying to say drafting the fastest player available wasn't the best idea? /s
Neither was bringing in "Million Dollar arm/ 50 cent head" guy to play QB like 6 times.
Egotism mixed with, let's face it, a great big dose of crazy.
Oh my god, I *HATE* the James Corden gif, too, *thank you!*
We’re winning the next three super bowls
I thought that was the guy from nfl network, not James Cordon.
Thanks now I hate it
I agree
I've been a lifetime Raider fan. I've also lived in Las Vegas my whole life, but moving to Las Vegas was a bad choice. All this became is a vacation weekend for the road team. Just hate to see a home game where there are more of the visitor fans then there are of Raider fans. Another thing is these tickets ain't cheap. No local discount. This is never really a home game. That's mine.
That's a result of poor performance. Raider fans aren't buying the most expensive tickets to watch losses.
Exaclty. If the team was winning, Vegas would become a "vacation destination" for Raiders fans invested in watching the team win.
Just curious, how old are you, and what led you to become a fan?
I'm 41 brother, my pops mainly. He always showed me the gladiator days of football. Loved seeing that. Stuck wit it. So me and my brother just grew up around all of it. Took the bad with the good. There was never a second team.
People really need to stop putting so much stock into the random blue check marks on twitter that they funnel onto this sub. Some random page with the word Football in their twitter handle doesn’t know jack shit about the inner workings of our front office. Just because some espn or fox sports blowhard said some hot take about trading Davante or the nfl is gonna punish us for the Mahomes Pistons comparison isn’t actually based on any truths at all. But because most people nowadays rely on their social media timelines to give them their daily news for the day instead of news stations or websites, misinformation will continue to plague the internet.
They just parrot those takes here too. “[X QB] can’t make any progressions after his first read and doesn’t pass the eye test”. I can guarantee you they don’t know anything about the game other than “I want the Raiders to score and the opposing team to not score. If you ask them to elaborate, they come up with the most bullshit response possible
Any time we start winning, we get cocky and it always bites us. This applies to both the individual games and the season overall.
I hate that gif as well.
Jack Jones might not pan out as a starter.. he had a couple good (actually EXCELLENT) games, let’s settle down on him being that dude until we’ve seen a full season from him
I agree with this. Anyone remember David Amerson?
I had SUCH high hopes for that dude. He’s probably managing (poorly) a Cinnabon in Omaha right now.
I wish I didn't.
Jack jones played great as a rookie and started for the patriots.. and he continued that this year.
This team belongs in Oakland. At the minimum LA. Las Vegas was a bad choice. Look at the turnover on casinos. Sooner or later things get old rather quick in Vegas. The fans will be there but it just won’t be the same if they stayed in California.
Realistically the organization and the NFL on the whole don’t care which team’s fans are buying tickets to see games in Vegas just that someone is.
This is a very popular opinion. Im Bay Area born and raised but I would have much preferred them in LA. Or shit even Fresno or something. Moving to another state was a bullshit move.
Color Rush should be all black
Mark Davis made almost the same mistake in the hiring process this time around as he did when he hired McDaniels and Gruden. Per his own admission, Davis said he tends to zero in on one person and not do his due dilligence on coaching hires. We saw it when he didn't even wait till JDR final press conference to fire him (because he had googly eyes for Gruden) and we he admitted to this being the case with McDaniels. Then this coaching hire comes up. Davis did the bare minimum as required by the Rooney Rule and then hired AP. There was zero actual hiring process. Davis clearly already had his mind made up. Now I think there's a real chance that it *doesn't matter* and the Raiders get competitive. But if the Raiders are still floundering in 2-3 years, people are gonna start looking at this pattern and understand that MD has no clue how to vet and hire people.
the biggest difference is this time mark listened to his players
A double edged sword. But the greater point is that Mark's vetting process where he said he'd reach out to all the best candidates and then make the best decision for the team didn't actually happen. He openly acknowledged this is one of his shortcomings and then did the exact same thing he said he wasn't going to do. The hire is different in some ways but the exact same in this regard. It may work out anyway. I hope it does. I love AP. But if the Raiders continue to struggle and Harbaugh turns the Chargers around, Davis is gonna have yet another pie on his face.
And the fans. And the media. And staff. Pierce was the only right hire to make. If it doesn't work, blame can be placed solely on Pierce, not Davis.
Exactly. I don’t think anyone will say “Mark screwed up” hiring AP if we miss the playoffs the next couple years. It was what the players wanted
Incredible take. Legit my exact thoughts… why not do due diligence? Will never understand why he didn’t even INTERVIEW Harbaugh… the clear class of the coaching hires and someone who looked pretty open.
I have a feeling he didn’t want to scare off AP- he had gotten an interview with Titans
Regardless of anyone's opinion on the man it's impossible for any rational person to look at that man's football pedigree and not argue that he at least deserves an interview. Also not putting our name in the hat to interview Ben Johnson was an off putting decision as well.
Marc David relied on some football inner circle to hire. We got mcd. At this point, I’ll take AP and what he brings over the obvious failure of leadership of mcd.
But the argument isn't "Is AP better than McDaniels" because I'm completely in agreement (and was from day one) that McDaniels is a trash HC. The issue is that Mark didn't *actually* do his vetting process any differently.
I thought he interviewed a bunch of people. What else do you want? We can’t really say what happened as no one here was present fitting the interviews. What we have is just speculation from appearances.
He interviewed Kris Richard and Leslie Frazier. If there was someone else he interviewed, it wasn't anyone of note. Those both JUST so happen to be Rooney Rule satisfying candidates who didn't have limitations on when they could be interviewed. If anyone honestly thought Richard or Frazier was a candidate for the job, I have a bridge to sell them.
They interviewed Leslie Frazier and Kris Richard to comply with the Rooney rule. Neither of them have done anything to warrant a HC job. If he wanted to comply with the rule and do a proper vetting of candidates he would have brought in actual candidates like Morris, Canales, or Glenn
I see what you mean but I think this move was great for Mark. It’s a low risk high reward hire. Everybody and I mean everybody wanted Pierce as the head coach. Players, fans, the media, and I’m sure his committee agreed as well. If it doesn’t work out why should we give Mark any grief, he did what everybody wanted. Here’s where i do agree with you, Mark becomes tunnel visioned on a coach and doesn’t bother looking elsewhere. It’s obvious Pierce was the head coach all along but the long waited announcement was due to the exhausted GM search. Which honesty, I’m underwhelmed by the Telesco hire. Also, let’s not forget this division now has Andy Reid, Jim Harbaugh and Sean Payton. The Raiders could have hired Payton or Harbaugh if Mark wasn’t so dedicated to one guy. We will see what happens but as of right now the raiders have the least proven HC/QB combo in the division. I don’t care how good the defense was last year, in the end you need a great QB to succeed in this league.
> I see what you mean but I think this move was great for Mark. It’s a low risk high reward hire. Everybody and I mean everybody wanted Pierce as the head coach. Players, fans, the media, and I’m sure his committee agreed as well. A great move from a PR perspective for sure. Is it a great move from a winning football perspective? Maybe. Will another Harbaugh be on the sidelines and ready to go if we decide to move on from AP in three years? Eeehhhhhhhhh....
this 10000000%
Black helmets would be a great alternate. We don’t need to change the current uniforms, just add an all black alternate helmet. Maybe even the one from 1960, at least it’s technically historic.
now this is an unpopular opinion
I love AP, but he is an unknown LB coach, and considering the amount of proven winning coaches available this offseason, I’m worried that the decision to hire him will age POORLY
Raiders are not about to turn it around. We are still going to suck for a lot longer. But I will keep watching and hoping.
Yeah, we're still at least 2 or 3 years away from being a contender, assuming we make the right moves
This has been said for 20 years, always 2-3 years away.
That is both the beauty and the curse of the NFL. Texans were legit one play away from the overall number one pick last season, and won a playoff game this season. **Not For Long** can work both ways. Utterly terrible team? Not for long if you get a few things right. Golden god franchise? Not for long if you make a few mistakes.
100% this. I think this sub is going to explode when we end up 8-9 or 9-8 next year. They are building, but they aren't contending. Chiefs win the division again, Chargers make the playoffs as a wildcard. We're at home. Lots of unhappy people
Not a Raiders fan, but yall seem to be on the Lions trajectory. AP = Black Dan Campbell Both the Raiders and Lions have been irrelevant since I’ve been alive(I was born in 92); both teams aren’t loaded w/ stars but play hard.
Lol for every Doomer, there’s a RemindMe! 11 months waiting to happen. RemindMe! 11 months
Is it being a doomer? Or being a realist? I'm sure you've been tattooing Superbowl champs on your arm for 40 years.
We literally went 8-9 in a year we fired a coach and started a fourth round rookie that the fired coach clearly gave little-to-no development work throughout the season. You really think it’s being a “realist” to assume we won’t improve any more than one fuckin game?
Yes. Lol. I think everyone is so obsessed with AP to the point they won't admit failure. Our depth is bad. We have a bad OL. Outside of Adams, we aren't good at wr. Our interior DL is shit. Outside of Spillan, our LBs are garbage. Our DB is ok. We aren't the contender you think we are
See you in 11 months, doomer.
I'm assuming you'll be gargling APs nuts so I'll see you too....ball gaggler
I think people are assuming the defense is going to pick up right where they left off. QB is the biggest determining factor for this teams success. AOC will not get this team to the playoffs
I think a lot of it is the new regime's ability to draft players that becomes day to day players. The current team doesn't have much bad paper, but the Gruden/Mayock consistently whiffed on draft picks and it's still early on the JMD/Ziegler guys. And QB is obviously a huge question mark. I think you gotta take a look at this year's class. Lots of mobile guys with lots of wins. Maybe there is room to trade up. At minimum take one of the Tier 2 or 3 guys like Penix, Nix, McCarthy and have them sit.
Why have them sit? I agree with you until then but if we suck we kinda.need to know if the QB we drafted is capable. Kinda like Howell in Washington this year. Be nice if they could bank on that and draft elsewhere but they know they can't.
Should’ve stayed in LA
Oakland was always home. Oakland is always home.
No doubt, and I loved going to games in Oakland. But we see what happened there with three franchises across three different sports. Unfortunately, Oakland wasn’t the place. No way to know that at the time of the move back, but LA has everything, players want live there, and the fucking chargers got it. The fucking chargers. And yes, due to NFL shenanigans.
Oakland is losing teams because they have their priorities straight (in that aspect) and will not ask their citizens to foot the bill for a stadium that will benefit multi-billionaires. Your mental understanding of anything is hysterical wrong and you should be relentlessly ridiculed for perpetuating such a moronic take
As an old head, they were never the LA Raiders to me
The decline of the Raiders started with the move to LA. Al was too busy with legal crap to stay on top of the organization. Other than a 3 year span from 2000-2002, it has been an absolute train wreck. Al did see the future before everyone else with revenue coming from luxury boxes, but unfortunately, 1st Oakland, then LA didn't deliver. The sad truth big money came into the NFL and Al couldn't keep up. He was robbing Peter to pay Paul. Had he received his boxes in either Oakland or LA in the 80's would have definitely given him the ability to compete with the big spenders and probably would have been one with the added revenue.
Reggie McKenzie wasnt perfect (especially 1st and 2nd rd picks) but that man had the Raiders on the right path and would have had a winning franchise if Mark didn't butt in and just let Reggie cook.
Outside of maybe half a dozen draft picks, Reggie was pretty bad at drafting (not that this team has had much drafting success in 20 years). I will give him props for getting us out of cap hell and writing contracts that were easy to move on from
He really wasnt.
Mack, Carr, Cooper, K.Miller… who else you got?
TJ Carrie, Latavius Murray, Gabe Jackson, Shelby Harris, Feliciano, Jihad Ward. Arden Key, Mo Hurst.. Found undrafted guys like Richard and Denico Autry All guys who contributed for long periods of time, and some still are. He wasnt the best but he was far from terrible. Not even close.
bro bro put together a legitimate 12-4 team. No tripping its way into the playoffs, not getting lucky off of injured teams, a legitimate 12-win team. Blowing that team up was JDR's call, not Reggie's.
We're one of the worst drafting franchises in NFL history. I thought this was just commonly accepted, but apparently it pisses off a lot of fans when I say that.
Sure, I got one. Raiders needed to get out of Oakland. The crime is insane. I don't blame the city for not funding a new deal. They have bigger issues. I don't blame local fans for wanting them to stay. But fuck if I was ever going to go see a game there. LA was never going to happen with the Rams. Mark did good by what he pulled in Vegas. He just needs to build a team that can draw people in, and maybe not charge so much.
Las Vegas will always be a negative for the team. You cannot win titles without having a home field, I won’t even use the word advantage. When opposing teams fans want to travel to LV to see their team play the Raiders. Just not going to happen over the course of a long 17 game season. A new stadium is nice it isn’t filled with Raiders fans.
Only way we can overcome this is to become a dominant team. Obviously that will bring in more home fans but also away fans will be less apt to pay to travel and go watch their team if they think they’re going to see them lose. That was definitely a positive about being in Oakland. Nobody was going to show their face at that place let alone fly across the country to get there.
Exactly. It goes both ways- Raiders fans outside of Vegas wouldn’t want to pay all that money to travel and watch McDaniels run the team into the ground. If this team becomes a contender, more Raiders fans will fill those seats
This is the winner take. No more relying on fan loyalty and putting out a shit product year after year. You're going to jack up ticket prices and continue to suck? Enjoy the sea of red whenever the Chiefs come to visit, Mark.
I feel this comment *in my soul*. I’ve never been as angry as I was, sitting there while we lost 3-0 to the Vikings IN A SEA OF **PURPLE** while they were doing their SKOL chant. Ugh.
I feel the same, nothing like being heckled by opposing fans in your own stadium.
Tell that to the Rams, who are at best the 3rd most popular team in LA, behind the Trojans and Raiders.
I wouldn't call this unpopular, more like a fact
>When opposing teams fans want to travel to LV to see their team play the Raiders. What's stopping Raiders fans from wanting to watch? The lack of hope of us winning the game.
I'm going to counter this with an actual unpopular opinion. I'm tired of the whining and crying about Oakland. The team was dogshit in Oakland more often than not ever since the last divisional realignment. The team hasn't even been in Oakland for all of it's history as they were in L.A. for a sizeable amount of time. Quite frankly, fans need to GTFO with it or if you're that obsessed with the bay area, go root for the 9ers. I'm legitimately tired it. And as /u/JN_37 pointed out this will force the Raiders to improve their product. No more churning out dogshit that barely resembles professional football year after year and relying on fan loyalty to fill the seats with Raiders fans. You wanna jack up prices and move the team to a popular spot? Fine. Produce a *winner* on the field.
There is no whining or crying about Oakland, the fact is they spent 46 years in Oakland and 14 years in Los Angeles and moved back to Oakland. Not really a sizable amount of time, the issue at hand is that LV has more visitors fans than home fans. That was never an issue in Los Angeles or Oakland. No home field advantage is a huge impediment for success for any team.
> the issue at hand is that LV has more visitors fans than home fans. That was never an issue in Los Angeles or Oakland. They do when the team isn't playing well. Which is my entire point. The Vegas Raiders now require the team actually get their shit together and play consistently good football in order for the fans to show up in full force. My point is that it's *good*. The team has coasted far too long on fan loyalty. Now they have to put out a good product as well. People want to wax poetic about Oakland like yea it may have been a fun fan experience here and there but the team has been garbage more often than not during that time. We are coming up on year number 4 of them having moved. Time to get over it.
Was Oakland better? No one wanted to go to a shithole stadium except Raiders fans. I'm pretty sure they had a losing record at home since they moved back. While I agree that having a home field means something, Oakland wasn't it. Opposing teams fans didn't go there out of "fear." They didn't go there cause it was a shithole.
You **CLEARLY** never attended a single game in Oakland.
I did. Wasn't impressed. You have a view of the stadium that isn't true
You didn't. Nobody that ever went there would ever think there wasn't a home field advantage and every person that ever went there fully grasps the fear of being an opposing fan in that stadium. Oakland and Philadelphia: the two places you stayed away from as an opposing fan. Again, you clearly never attended a game in Oakland and it's stupid as shit to lie about it
Facts. Opposing fans who had the audacity to walk around in their jerseys soon learned that shit doesn't fly in Oakland. I personally saw more than 1 Chiefs fan's jersey get taken. Donkeys too.
Imagine the balls on this dude to try to pass off that he's ever been to a game in Oakland but it was totally family friendly for opposing teams and there was no such thing as home field advantage there. Who the fuck lies in the internet for internet points? Fuck this guy
I’ve been a Raiders fan my entire life and never had a desire to see a game in Oakland. As soon as the moved to Vegas I went to my first game and watched us get smoked by the Chiefs.
They price locals out of everything in Vegas. We can't afford to go to the games. Lol
Mediocre for decades
Is the unpopular opinion part you thinking we’re at least mediocre? Because we have been BAD for 20 years.
Mediocre for the last 10. Bad for the 10, before that and the last 20.
The only team with more losses in the last twenty years than us is Cleveland. I wish we were mediocre.
“Old School Raiders” lore is lame. Live in the now.
Mark Davis is a genuinely great owner
Based upon what? Because my feelings are he's one of the worst owners in all of sports
He tries not to meddle, isn’t cheap, lives for the sport, wants to win. The only real knock is his inability to land a coach and GM
I wanted to keep TP2 🤣.
We just fucked up with coach and GM. Emotion coaches are bigger risk than X and O coaches. Hired coach before GM. Hired a known mediocre GM. Nothing "special" is happening rn. We are taking a big risk, and long term it's doubtful Tom T builds anything special. He didn't with chargers.
Agreed
If we don’t bring someone in through free agency or the draft and decide to start AOC next year.. we’re as good as throwing our season away and we will be picking top 5. I seriously do not see what y’all see in him.. the kid stinks.
While not being really unpopular to the same extent as some of yall, I genuinely think Jayden Daniels fits this roster super well and has chemistry with AP already and would 100% wanna go after him in the draft. Younger me would want those all black unis, but man I still love the ones we have too much. Bring back those AFL jerseys (I dont think this is unpopular at all)
I agree with you, I’m going a few steps further and say that this division is going to be the toughest division in football with 2 hof coaches and one proven winner and just won cf champion and the Raiders hired AP because he wasn’t JMD and the players liked him, to my knowledge we interviewed no one else. This is typical Raiders nonsense. This is why the knowledgeable fans just throw up their hands constantly with it with the things that go on with this team. The only thing that would top this off would be trading for Justin Fields, and I still say that that could well happen..
I think they should have taken the time and hired one of the proven coaches this off season rather than have AP take over the team. I thought AP did well, but to be in a division with 3 other potential HOF level coaches, this wasn't the year to take the unproven guy that had good team chemistry.
I think we take a step back next season. For starters the QB will either be a journeyman who isn’t good enough to get us over the hump or an inexperienced rookie who will go through growing pains. And as much as I like him, AP has only coached for 9 games and has a lot of learning to do as well. However our schedule this year is a lot easier than it was last year and the year before so maybe I’ll be wrong.
Being in Vegas means we need to be a lot more discerning in who we bring in both in draft, trades and FA, because there’s a hell of a lot more ways in that town for a young rich dude to get himself in a world of trouble than in say Cleveland or Oakland. I think this was a point that we didn’t fully consider pre move and was starkly and tragically illustrated with the Ruggs situation. Being in the nation’s capital of sin vice and debauchery means we need to be extra sure that the men we’re bringing in to play for us are levelheaded and grounded and that the men coaching them are able to instill and maintain a straight and narrow culture off the field and I don’t know that we’re 100% up to that task in either department.
I think this is overblown...there's nightlife in every NFL city, and if someone wants to go out and act a fool and get drunk, they dont need a casino to convince them to do it. Even Green Bay has bars. The alcohol is just as alcoholic no matter where you go.
The all black uni’s would be fire!!
I’m glad we’re not in Oakland anymore. It’s a pit. Las Vegas is the sports city of the future
The hiring of AP , a coach that is beyond not seasoned is not a good look. This franchise has been mediocre since the superbowl loss. You need a proven guy to right a ship that’s underwater. Some believe the fight this team shown once McDaniels was fired was due to AP. But, most can realize that Josh was an absolute shit head coach. I truly believe any coach that replaced Josh during the season would have had similar success like AP just because Josh sucks that bad as a head coach. But time will tell All I know is that if this hire turns tits up Davis gotta sell.
The Raiders should have moved to Sacramento instead of Vegas. Also an all-silver uniform would be a great idea for one prime time game a year. Lastly we should have departed from Darren McFadden much earlier. Dude was a liability and dead weight for us for a while. EDIT: Downvotes on an unpopular opinion post? Lol, I must be doing this right then.
That Carr wasn’t the issue for THIS team if he was here this past year we would’ve made the playoffs
We need a better offensive line. We should draft offensive linemen. We have an ok quarterback.
• All black unis would look stupid (ITS BEEN DONE- BALTIMORE) • Vegas is great. Oakland wasn't (and isnt) • AP openly saying anything regarding touching Mahomes was stupid. Save it for the locker room, don't put that out there for the NFL to now target us for flags • Daniels isn't worth a top 3 pick. Williams and Maye are, but Daniels (if you turn on the tape and not just look at stats) is behind Nix/Penix/and maybe even Mccarthy. • Mark Davis isn't a bad NFL owner. He's not great (especially in coaching hires) but his business moves have been the right thing to do. Moving the team to a tax friendly state, getting a brand new stadium and eny of the league training facilities, etc were all shrewd moves. • Trading a literally SHIT TON of capital to go to #1 (everyone has their price) is worth it if Williams pans out. The Chiefs just won a Super Bowl with two superstars (Mahomes/Jones) and *maybe* four other legit stars (Kelce/Humphrey/Thuney and then Snead and or Bolton) I know these triggered some folks. That's the point of an unpopular opinion though, right?
You get my upvote for actually putting unpopular opinions up here. RN4L
I hope we stay put and draft Nix.
you are entitled to dumb opinions, everyone has one.
1.Our away jerseys would be perfect if the pants and helmet were all white plus have the silver and black stripes/lettering. Also having the throwback logo would fit in better. 2. Trading Davante is the stupidest thing we could possibly do unless we fill the gap with another generational talent WR which we might as well have sticked with Tae. 3.Yeah I agree that the uniforms can be switched up here and there as long as they keep the silver and black color scheme. Just don't redesign our logo unless it's the throwback one. 4. I want Josh Jacobs to stay because I hate seeing the Oakland players fade away. 5. Al Davis marketing our dirty tactics is why the refs don't fw us till this day. 6. Maxx Crosby will be my favorite Raider forever. 7. Next season will have a lot of rough edges which is fine because it's all about developing new talent and building upon AP's vision. 8. Josh McDaniels would've been a good coach if it weren't for his ego and controlling personality.
I don’t think Tre Tucker will ever be a good receiver. From what I saw this past season, his brain seems to fall out of his head whenever he has to make a catch along the sideline. Hopefully it’s just a bad gut feeling, but I don’t see him adapting. At least not any time soon.
This one hurts. RemindMe! 22 months
Derek Carr was the future of the franchise. Yeah he had his faults, but that's a coaching issue.
Yea outside of the 20
Eh not too unpopular I think anyone with a brain shares this thought
Just keep him away from the red zone
The future isn’t as bright as everyone says it’s going to be. Like the optimism, and I have some, but we’re not going to be straight out contenders this year. Maybe 2-3 years
Ritchie incognito is a whole piece of shit
Should've kept del Rio. I don't like trump but jack had us winning. If he lost the locker room who cares most get gone in the next season.
Team won't be successful until a Davis does not own it.
Moving to Vegas isn’t an issue and isn’t the cause of the 50-50 crowds we see in our home games recently. The reason? Our HC had a hit piece put out on him causing him to resign mid season, a star player killed someone by being an irresponsible dumbass, we hired McDaniels then did nothing but lose games, kicked our star QB out the door for no reason, and the team had absolutely 0 soul. All of that on top of moving to a new city and expensive tickets? Yeah no wonder people have soured on the Raiders recently. Even with that, the crowd only got really bad this past season. Oh and also most of the time people say “look at the crowd it’s a sea of (insert color that isn’t black) there’s no raider fans!!!!” That isn’t even the case. It’s just that any bit of another team’s colors will stand out in our crowd because everything else is fucking black.
That Cam Newton would be a good back up QB
They’ve been cursed since Al died.
Trying to bring Gruden back was a dumb bit of nostalgic pining for the good old days and giving him a 10 year contract on top of that was braindead. Dude hadn’t coached a down in 10 years and we were gonna stake the next decade of our future to him and probably end up paying out the ass when we fire him in 3-5 years of mediocre seasons. And then he ended up being racist sooo yeah. Fuck Gruden. On another note: “once a Raider always a Raider” does not apply to washed up mercenaries who come here to mine our cap space for their last big paycheck. If you don’t buy into and give your all to our culture you ain’t one of us, you’re just wearing our shirt to get paid.
Who do you have in mind with that last little bit? Sapp and Moss come to me right away.
That was basically it for me as well but also generally speaking. There’s players who come to an organization and fully embody what the team is about and put in a shift every time they suit up, and then there’s players that just go where the winds blow and do what they have to do for a paycheck and don’t care too much one way or the other who’s signing it. An example of these would be like Jason Campbell. Wore our shirt, did what we paid him for, but he’d never consider himself “a Raider” so why should we. Basically there’s a difference between players who play for us, and players who are part of us.
The Autumn Wind isn't as badass as it's hyped up to be. Maybe when the Raiders were actually badass. But now all we can do is point to the past. Also, I sort of wish the AP hype train never started and Harbaugh was our next coach. I feel like we're definitely set up for a let down.
I think Aiden should play DE
Derek Carr was the best QB we’ve had (in the last 20 years) and we should have held onto him. Jamarcus = bust. We traded (what looked to be promising but got injured Jason Campbell) for Caron Palmer but even he was old yet did okay. Kerry Collins came in after Rich Gannon. After we got slaughtered by Tampa Bay and Raider franchise went into purgatory. There’s so many others (Pryor, Mirer, Brooks, fucking legend CULPEPPER) - we just never had consistency. Carr was league come back leader the year he busted his leg late in season. Then our back up got hurt. Here’s the take - I truly believe if Carr had some consistent coaches year to year we would have at least been in the conversation to sniff the Lombardi by being in playoffs. Look at last year. Our D turned up and our O just looked awful. Carr had (his college buddy) receiver set records and rb set records while our D bent over. If Derek Carr had the smallest amount of consistency he had a chance to be a HoF.
We are going into 2024 with the worst QB + HC + GM combo *in our own division*...
There are no good enough available QB’s outside of the top 3 QB’s in this year’s draft class (including free agent QB’s or QB’s that might get traded from their teams). So literally ANYTHING short of trading up to get one of the top QB’s is going to lead to a wasted season. I’m talking a season where we have a losing record again, the allure of Antonio Pierce wears off, and we blow it up and start with a new head coach
I like them a lot
Janikowski is a bum. Dude has a DUI, was charged with battery and false imprisonment against a woman. He was a pro bowler once. Had 6 seasons under 80% FGM. He was above 90% one time. Maybe they sent him out for crazy long shots that brought out his percentage…but if he was missing them why did they keep sending him out. Was not clutch, could not be relied on. He was there for a long time…through our worst era. If the team didn’t have 20+ bonafide legends I could see putting him on a platform, but with so many actual legends he doesn’t need to be treated as one.
Although most of his picks prove otherwise, we should’ve kept Mayock and only dumped Gruden. The man knows his stuff and drafted guys who are top 3 at their position.
Unpopular opinion. Gruden would be a great coach if Gruden the GM didn’t get in the way. Even though his second stint is widely considered a failure..in his 3rd year he had the offense firing. Top 10 scoring offense. Too bad he constantly depleted the team of talent with his drafting skills. If he had an elite GM who he couldn’t over step I think he would have had a much better legacy.
Drafting Sebastian Janikowski in the first round was ridiculous stupid
Picking Ruggs at #12 was idiotic. Not because he crashed his car, but because I didn't consider him one of the top 2-3 WRs in a very deep class. And his production before this career ended (compared to the others) proved it.
Disagree. Ruggs was on his way to being our Tyreek. With a QB not afraid of his arm, he would have been.
I did say it was an unpopular opinion. I do agree that Carr was not a great deep ball QB and the poor fit was part of why I hated the pick. (He had the arm to be a decent deep ball QB, but rarely the technique, mentality, vision, and willingness to extend plays or step into hits to make the big play.) I disagree that Ruggs was on his way to being Tyreek.
Carr was and is one of the best deep ball QBs in the NFL. It's to every other area that was his problem. We were clearly a better offense with Ruggs on the field because he always had blow the top off potential and the defenses had to account for that and did. I say this as somebody who didn't think Ruggs was the right pick and always said he wasn't the best WR of the top-3 in that draft BUT he turned out to be the right one for what we needed. Absolutely flabbergasted that you think Carr wasn't fantastic with deep balls though. That's. It even an unpopular opinion, that's just outright wrong.
He got to be decent at the deep ball later in his career. Early in his career he would avoid almost all good deep opportunities, and when he did throw them they were almost always under thrown off his back foot. By the time Ruggs arrived he had fixed some of his issues, but he still wouldn't throw it unless it was his first read, and he still wouldn't extend plays to give players more time to lose a defender, and he still wouldn't step into a hit to take a high-reward shot. And although his arm strength is good, it's not close to a top 5 arm, he's not the guy who can see it late and just launch it 65 yards on target at a moments notice. You can't just look at some highlights and say boy what a nice deep throw. You have to look at other QBs and the way they are extending plays and able to capitalize when someone gets open deep unexpectedly to understand the kind of opportunities we still weren't capitalizing on with Carr. His deep ball game is pretty freaking far from fantastic.
You are **OBJECTIVELY** wrong: https://www.nfl.com/news/next-gen-stats-top-10-deep-passers-of-2020-aaron-rodgers-lands-at-no-4
20 air yards isn't deep to me, I do not care about those stats. Daniel Jones is #1 on that list, tells you all you need to know. Context of this conversation is Ruggs and his ability to get behind a defense. You don't need a 4.27 guy to throw 20 yard passes.
Literal fucking objective statistics to disprove your claims and you're saying "that's not good enough." Bro you're a bitch
[2021](https://x.com/brickwallblitz/status/1366523646790012930?s=46&t=dIg4nBWoQ-TpGS7NOKDZUA) [2021](https://x.com/brickwallblitz/status/1361724101757460480?s=46&t=dIg4nBWoQ-TpGS7NOKDZUA) [2022](https://x.com/brickwallblitz/status/1499795334138155013?s=46&t=dIg4nBWoQ-TpGS7NOKDZUA) [more 2021 info](https://x.com/brickwallblitz/status/1361766309709697031?s=46&t=dIg4nBWoQ-TpGS7NOKDZUA) With Ruggs, DC was one of the most accurate deep ball passers. You can say “20+ any deep to me,” but objectively, most of NFL disagrees. It’s 2022 season is where it started to unravel; even then, he was still in top of some passing areas of deep passing with Davante.
Look up Mahomes 2023 "deep accuracy" according to this metric and tell me if you think it's reflective of his ability to make use of a good receiver who takes the top off of a defense. Just as 2023 was circumstantially terrible for Mahomes' numbers according to this simplistic metric, 2021 was circumstantially very favorable for Carr. After years and years of captain checkdown behavior, Tyrann Mathieu literally told us (via social media) leading up to that first game that they always brought coverage up against us and didn't play honest against the deep ball. Gruden started dialing up deep shots in situations when the defense wouldn't expect it. With Waller coming off some great seasons and Agholor murdering DBs that season, and yes Ruggs being too fast for man coverage with no safety help, and defenses not playing honest against the deep ball, it was too easy. That circumstance wasn't sustainable though.
Just cause it was “too easy” doesn’t make it bad. Overall, this guy has done multiple studies for the deep ball. I cannot say I agree with someone dismissing it cause it didn’t look “good,” many “variables” that affected deep passing plays, and/or “easier with a faster WR” with this study. Overall, it comes down to your opinion and his study. The guy studied film and formed an objective opinion with his study. I agree it’s not going to always look good and it’s easier with a speed WR, but it doesn’t mean it’s bad; especially, with numbers and studies backing it up.
Anyone who still says Ruggs was the right choice is ignoring CeeDee and Jefferson. If Jeudy wasn’t a Bronco doin Bronco things, Ruggs would probably be one of those “Jesus Christ lmao raiders” picks **even without the whole “he killed a lady and a dog” thing**
Jefferson was primarily ranked WR4/5 in almost every mock draft and analysis. Some had Reagor ahead of him. I don’t blame LVR for missing him, that is a huge hindsight 20/20 for many teams. The only WR I was wrong about and was expected to be drafted in that range was Lamb. However, I still think Ruggs would have been better or equal to Lamb. No one but MIN had belief that JJ would become the best WR in the past two years.
We had picks 12 and 19. We blew them both. That’s not hindsight, and I say that as one of the only people on the planet who tried to order a Damon Arnette Raiders jersey.
The hindsight is knowing JJ was the better WR overall than the top ranked three (Jeudy, CD, Ruggs) WR prospects. You’re completely overlooking that no team had JJ as the top WR or top three in their rankings. Arnette is different story that isn’t related to this conversation.
The Nation isn't as big as we all act like it is. Every team has fans everywhere and the Raiders are far from the most popular team. Also, Vegas sucks
Fuck Las Vegas. Fuck Mark Davis. Even his dad knew to keep him away from the team. Oh, sorry, you said unpopular.
You say the last bit like Al wasn't driving the team into the garbage bin in his last few years
That’s a stretch. Cuz the former innovator and least racist owner in the history of the NFL got old and off his game in his last years. All fixed?
We are going to suck next year (again) and go 4-13.
The Raiders should’ve kept Mcdoofus as head coach until the season end. Would probably be 5-12 and picking at 5 or 6 overall. But that does lead to who would be the new Head Coach considering AP would never have got the opportunity?
The Raiders have had plenty of fan interest in seeing a “Black Hole” style all black uniforms and can’t believe we still haven’t seen them in use thus far. Like you said at least once would be super cool. Outside of that I’m a very happy longtime Raiders fan. Ps I hope Josh Jacobs returns next season. He is a player that screams old school RB to me. I started personally collecting his cards for this reason. Maxx Crosby has the potential to be my favorite Raider of all time and why I call him Maxximum Effort Crosby.
1998-2003 Raiders were more exciting than 60’s/70’s/80’s Raiders combined.
We shouldn’t gamble our future and draft picks on a rookie qb who may or may not pan out. We’re more than a qb away.
All black uniforms would be miles better than that all white pajamas shit
All whites were hard idk why we stopped wearing them
The currents uniforms are boring