Tag Archive: Raiders

Dennis Allen: At the End of the Day

October 5, 2014 Adam Thomas

Fare thee well, Dennis Allen, fare thee well.

What I will remember most from Dennis Allen’s tenure as a head coach are a few things:

1.) He was previously a defensive backs coach and a defensive coordinator…and the biggest problems with the Raiders during his time as a coach have been the defensive backs and the defense as a whole.

2.) He always wore a visor and on that visor was always clipped a red sharpie marker. I remember one of the Raiders beat writer’s asked a player if they had ever seen Dennis Allen actually write with the sharpie and he replied something to the extent of “no.”

3.) Each press conference, you could count on one of the following phrases to come out of his mouth: “At the end of the day…” “We gotta improve as a football team…” “I’m not here to get into what ifs or anything like that…” I’m doing a bad job remembering all of the little phrases he would use, but the one that stands out the most is ‘At the end of the day.’

4.) When I read articles about his firing like the one on Profootballtalk about how Mark Davis fired the wrong guy, it is infuriating. Because he didn’t.

The Raiders have a TON of problems right now and Dennis Allen was one of those problems. He had 8 wins over two and a quarter seasons. The Raiders just got blown out by the Miami Dolphins. They lost the Texans and Dolphins by a combined scored of 68-28 and I’m pretty sure most of those 28 points came in the 4th quarter.

The Profootballtalk article is titled “Mark Davis fires the guy who really wasn’t to blame.”

WHAT!? Wasn’t to blame? He is the head freaking coach who went 8-28 over his tenure!

Look at this sentence:

“Davis needs to realize that the problems run far deeper than a head coach who made the best batch of chicken salad he possibly could, given a list of ingredients that includes wasted draft picks and overpriced free agents whom no one else wanted.”

Ummm…what free agent that the Raiders signed this offseason is overpriced? Maybe Austin Howard…maybe… but they are set up to have 60 million plus in cap space next year. Are some of the free agents brought in by GM Reggie McKenzie bad? Of course! But they can cut them in the offseason with little to no re-percussions because most of them were signed to one or two year deals.

Also, wasted draft picks? Has Florio seen this year’s draft? It looks like Reggie knocked it out of the park with Khalil Mack–ProFootball Focus’ current defensive rookie of the year–and Gabe Jackson. Derek Carr looks like he is going to be ok, and they’re getting contributions from DT Justin Ellis, CB Keith McGill and 7th round DB T.J. Carrie.

Last year’s draft looks dicey at the top, sure, but D.J. Hayden hasn’t even played this season so it’s a little much to call him a wasted draft pick just yet–although the clock is certainly ticking on that–Menelik Watson may develop into a good right tackle and Sio Moore is one of the best defensive players on the team.

So look, kill the Raiders all you want cause they suck right now, but please, do realize that Dennis Allen was an awful head coach and he needed to go.

At the end of the day, it’s what needed to happen.

On to the picks!

Last week, I went 3-0…finally.

For the season, I am 6-3.

This week, I like:

Ten/Cle under 45.5

Bengals -1.5 over the Patriots (This looks too good to be true. I think I’m getting trapped.)

Pitt/Jax over 46.5

Enjoy the games!

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Percy Harvin

The NFL Double Standard

August 1, 2013 Adam Thomas

Can you imagine if a team like the Jets had traded a first and seventh round pick in this year’s draft and a third round pick in next year’s draft for a wide receiver, and then gave that player a 5 year contract worth 25.5 million dollars in guaranteed money AND THEN it turned out that player had to have hip surgery and was out for–possibly–the entire season?

BEDLAM!

But instead, we get….crickets. From CBSSports “Obviously, this is bad news for the Seahawks.” Obviously.

From ESPN “The loss of Harvin is significant, but not a huge setback for a team that relies on the legs of Marshawn Lynch and timely passing of Russell Wilson to drive its offense.” OK…so if it’s not a setback then why did they trade a 1, 3, and 7 for him, and give him a huge contract?

Harvin, at best, will miss 12 to 16 weeks. This is a guy who couldn’t get on the field because of migraines. You think he is going to jump back immediately when he is cleared from hip surgery?  Doubtful.

So let’s call this trade what it is: Bad.

Seattle: You got fleeced.

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Sadly, the NFL Draft Cannot Go on Forever…

April 29, 2013 Adam Thomas

But man oh man I wish that it could!  You know why?  Because it’s so much fun doing things like this: sitting in front of the TV, awaiting the Raiders to make their 2nd round pick, the pick comes in and it’s: Menelik Watson, OT, Florida State.

And here’s my reaction:

WAIT! WHO? Oh man, who! No seriously, who did we just…(goes on-line and googles Menelik Watson) THIS GUY IS AWESOME!

Now, will he ever be good in the NFL? Who knows. But it my mind, he’s already the Raiders starting RT and made back to back pro-bowls.

Also, keep in mind when looking at draft grades: they are meaningless. Case in point, the Miami Dolphins are roundly being praised for their draft while the Patriots are getting some heat for theirs.  I might be going out on a limb here, but I am willing to bet that Bill Belichick knows what he’s doing juuuuuuust a bit more than Jeff Ireland. Just a bit.

But alas, it is all over now. Now, it’s onto the NFL season…I wish we could just fast forward to 2014 so the Raiders can draft Jadeveon Clowney already. Now that’s a player I know.

Speaking of the Dolphins, how about those new uniforms?  You remember that game Echo the Dolphin for Sega? I’m willing to bet Echo would DESTROY that sissy little dolphin they have on their helmets. Yeesh.

And the Jaguars well…I just want to pretend that their two-tone helmets don’t exist.

It looks like the Nuggets are going to lose to the Warriors, which makes me happy for some strange reason. It’s weird that sports grudges carry over based on city, but because I don’t like the Broncos, I also enjoy it when the Nuggets fail. Also, the Nuggets have Iggy now, so it’s fun to see him put another team through so much playoff misery. You know that fool had 7 turnovers last night?  Ouch.

Speaking of 7’s, Delaware has a new D-League team, which is awesome. Blue Rocks games are incredibly fun, so let’s hope that the Delaware 87ers (nicknamed the Sevens…huh?) games are just as fun.

Also, and at the risk of upsetting a one of our loyal readers, Andre Miller got DESTROYED by Stephen Curry last night. The old man cannot play defense against the young gun. There was one play where it looked like Curry legitimately broke Miller’s ankles. It’s never easy to watch the elderly get abused like that (please, somebody out there who enjoys Andre Miller almost as much as Jason Statham, please comment! This is ripe for the comments section!)

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NFL Myth: Teams Tank Games for Better Draft Picks

December 18, 2012 Adam Thomas

MB60T.St.81After the Raiders shutout the KC Chiefs and put on an absolute clinic about how to properly kick field goals on Sunday, I went over to Raiderfans.net to see how the Raider Nation was reacting. It was, after all, our first win in 7 weeks. And hey, even if it was a win over a terrible (and I mean tuuuuurrrrible) team, I’ll take what I can get at this point. A win is a win.

So what did I find? Fans bitching and complaining about the win!  And why is that, you may ask?  A.) It hurt our draft position and B.) Some sort of weird logic seemed to over take the board that the Chiefs team was “Tanking and just trying to secure the number one pick.”

Why oh why would any NFL team (which is comprised of 53 individual players on the active roster) tank just to get a better draft pick?  Does it make sense for the team’s GM to want the team to lose in order to secure a higher pick?  Sure, but that is assuming the GM will still be around after such a terrible year. Does it make sense for any of the 53 players to tank? Absolutely not.

Take the Raiders for example. Half of the guys on their team this year were not on the team last year. That means there are around 27 players who played for the Raiders last year and are now on another team or out of the league altogether.

So, if the Raiders were in contention for the number one pick last year and the team tanked towards the end of the season in order to get the number one pick, only half of the players would reap the benefits of said tanking. The other half would be out on the street, looking for work and having to explain to their future employers why they gave up on the season the year before.

In the NBA, I can understand a bad team tanking because the players have much better contracts and know that they will probably be back on the same team the next season.

In the NFL, players have terrible contracts and no incentive what so ever to mail in a performance and put out a bad roll of “TAPE” for the 30 other GM’s of the league and Jerry Jones.

So everyone claiming that a team like the Chiefs or the Jags are tanking and their players don’t care about winning or losing, there are probably around 55 guys who will be unemployed next offseason who would like a minute of your time.

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Hope Gets Hitched

November 14, 2012 Adam Thomas

Hope Solo married Jerramy Stevens on Tuesday–as some astute commentor on Yahoo! pointed out, ‘Who gets married on a Tuesday?’–but the real story is what went down BEFORE they got married.  Because I am lazy, allow me to copy and paste the police report from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer courtesy of Yahoo!:

“According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Marcus Solo (Hope’s brother) was the one who called Kirkland police, and when police came to the scene, he had blood on his forehead and knees, and a bruised eye. Hope solo then emerged from the house, intoxicated and with a laceration on her elbow. She did not cooperate with police and told her brother not to say anything. When police swept the house, they found eight intoxicated people, a woman in the kitchen with a hip injury, and Stevens on the floor of an upstairs bedroom, claiming that he was sleeping, not hiding.

Stevens had blood on his cheek and his shirt. He admitted that he had been arguing with Solo, and since police have to make an arrest when there is a domestic violence call, Stevens was arrested and charged with fourth-degree assault.”

My favorite part about the story is when the police found 8 intoxicated people in the house and a woman in the kitchen with a hip injury.  WHAT IN THE WORLD WENT DOWN?  Nobody knows…even those present, I’m sure…but apparently it wasn’t enough to deter the two love birds from tying the knot.  Sala.

Now, there are a lot of terrible stories out there about Stevens, and he most definitely is a despicable character, but my favorite memory of him is way back on Monday night football when he played for the Seahawks and he pissed off a Raider so bad (I think it was Tyler Brayton?) that Brayton grabbed Stevens and kneed him in the balls. (Exhibit A is to your left).

The weirdest part of that altercation? Stevens didn’t even act like it hurt. He just laughed. I don’t know ANYBODY that would be laughing after getting kneed in the junk by a 250-pound D-lineman.

Also, that was the night they let Christian Slater and his percocet into the Monday night football booth and he marveled at a punt by the Raiders. Not the play, mind you, just how high the ball went saying (with genuine glee like he had NEVER seen a ball get punted before) “WHOAAA! LOOK AT THAT!”

Good stuff.  Somebody needs to find that and put it on Youtube ASAP.

I finished the half marathon last Saturday in Richmond and if you’ve never run one, I highly recommend it. Especially in Richmond.  Now, it’s the only one I’ve ever run in so I’m sure they do this in other cities, but the whole town completely shuts down for the race. People come out of their houses and cheer you on, some of them hand out gummie bears, some of them hand out shots of Natty Light and Whiskey.

I was having none of it, however, as I had my eye on the prize!  That prize: Beating my brother’s time from last year of course! Nothing wrong with a little spirited brotherly competition.

So when I crossed the finish line in 1:54:39, I thought that I had won!

Until I got back to my Uncle and Aunt’s house and looked up his time from last year:

1:54:27

GAHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Next year, it’s on!

And we’re buying a championship belt for whoever wins.

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Cleaning Up Like Danny Tanner

February 24, 2012 Adam Thomas

Hey, I’m a cartoon now! Sweet!

1.) Here is all you need to know about how obnoxious ESPN’s coverage of Jeremy Lin has gotten: Last night the Knicks played the Heat and you know what?  I was rooting for the Heat to win! Goodness, it hurts to write that, but it’s true!  I would’ve rather had Lebron James destroy those fools and put a (albeit brief) stop to all the Jeremy Lin madness.

Look, I get it, it’s rare that something like this happens. But on Saturday morning, I turned on ESPN and they had an interview with Lin talking about how he was crying cause he kept getting cut by NBA teams. OK, that’s fine.  BUT then I turned on ESPN on Tuesday morning AND THEY WERE PLAYING THE EXACT SAME INTERVIEW!  Gah!  That is madness and it certainly deserved an all caps sentence.  Simmons has had THREE PODCASTS where he talks about Jeremy Lin.  And in every one, he always says “I mean, he’s going to end up like J.J. Barea…” just have that in one podcast. Case closed.

2.) Moving on, Stefanie and I just bought our first house, and you know what I did not expect?  Buying a house has turned me into freaking Danny Tanner! I’m walking around with disinfectant wipes, Windex and bleach non stop scrubbing all sorts of surfaces in my house! And this is funny cause I have never really been a clean person (just ask any of my former roommates), but all of a sudden, I’m like Bob Saget.

3.) We watched Drive last Friday in HD and let me tell you something, that movie was awesome.  By far the best movie I’ve seen in the past year. That is until I watched The Tree of Life on Wednesday.  Now it’s a tossup between those two.

Look, I know people are either going to love or hate the Tree of Life, but that’s how it is with all Terrence Malick movies. I remember once in Asheville, a group of us got together to watch his movie “The New World” and we all hated it.  I watched it alone two years later and now love it, but it’s certainly an acquired taste. If you don’t like voice-over, his movies probably ain’t for you.

What I will say about The Tree of Life is that no movie has ever made me think about the vastness of the universe and life and death more. It really is a spiritual movie more than anything else, and I really, really enjoyed it. Drive is just awesome cause of the visuals and the faux 80’s synthed out soundtrack that plays throughout every scene. If you like cheesy 80’s synth pop like me and Dennis Reynolds, OR you like Grand Theft Auto, then I suggest checking it out.

4.) Apparently Jay-Z and Kanye West played one of their songs ten times in a row at a concert. That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of being done at a concert in my life. And people have the gall to call those two conceited!

It did, however, remind me of an awesome burn that my friend Big B told me about: once upon a time, he and one of his buddies were leaving a bar and they decided to pump a juke box full of quarters and put that song “D.A.N.C.E” by Justice on about ten times in a row and then high tailed it out of there. Can you imagine listening to that song ten times in a row?  Oh my goodness that sounds like torture!  The only song I can think of that I’d like to listen to ten times in a row is “Starship Trooper” by Yes.  That was sarcasm. That’d be about 100 minutes of non-stop spritely music.

5.) While we’re on music, check out my cousin Chris’ awesome blog Live philly concerts where he goes around recording live performances of bands and posts them to the blog. He has literally been to more concerts in the past month than I have been to in my entire life! And the video quality is incredible considering he is filming it on his phone (I think) in a throng of fans. If you’re looking for some hip new bands, go check it out.  Good stuff.

6.) ALSO, while we’re on music, check out my buddy Sam’s band, Fort Lean. They were recently named a buzz worthy band by MTV. You close personal friends of mine might know Sam as a member of the multi-platinum selling rap group Insurrection. AKA, the rap band we formed when we were Counselors in Training up at Simon’s Rock College of Bard’s Young Writers Workshop back in 2004. All I’ve got to say is “GAME ON!” If you check out the link above, Sam is the one on the far left with the big hair.  He’s also the drummer and tears it up on their tracks.

What’s odd is that we haven’t talked in like 6 years and yet here I am plugging his band.  But that is the beauty (and the horror) of Facebook.

7.) Let’s see, what else.  Oh yes, I also recommend checking out King of New York, this crazy early 90’s movie where Christopher Walken plays a drug kingpin just released from jail. It’s pretty ridiculous (Lawrence Fishburn plays his part juuust a bit over the top) but it does have Walken playing a drug kingpin, and it is well worth it for this one scene where (SPOILERS!) he shoots a rival drug kingpin and then says, “If any of you…are getting tired…of getting ripped off by guys like that…you come with me. I’m at the Plaza Hotel….You’re welcome.  YOU’RE ALL WELCOME!…..To join.”

I don’t know if that quote did the brilliance of the scene justice, as Walken inter-splices the quote with random gun shots into the guy and, well, you all know how weirdly he enunciates things.  But just youtube it.

8.) The Sixers…yeesh, what can you say?  They are terrible. Looking at the top 8 teams in the East, there is only one that I think they can probably beat in a series, and that is Boston. Miami: no chance. Bulls: No. Orlando: No. Indiana: No. Atlanta: No. New York: No. Boston: Maybe. Yuck. They have really fallen off.

I’ve said it once, but this is the first time this season: They need to trade Iggy for a proven scorer. Then give Turner his minutes and I don’t think we will lose TOO much. Obviously, Iggy is better than Turner at this point but I think it’s a move that has to be made.

9.) It’s funny how when Stanford Routt was a Raider, he was garbage but now that they cut him and the Chiefs signed him, he is a shutdown corner. Look, I watched the guy all last year, he is doo-doo.

10.) I watched Tiger Woods in match play yesterday and man is his putting atrocious.  As my brother’s fiance, Jen, always says, “Drive for show, putt for dough.”

11.) The Rock is returning to Raw on Monday Night and he had better have his “A” game with him.  If he plugs twitter (which he will) or Facebook (which he will), I may have to side with John Cena in their feud, something I never thought possible.  See, the Rock I know and love would never do that.

The Rock I know and love wears leather fanny packs, gaudy gold watches, gold rimmed sun glasses, Hawaiian shirts, short khaki shorts and polished crocodile loafers with no socks to the ring to cut his promos (which involve being booed and giving people Rolex’s and pictures of the Rock as gifts).

The Rock I know and love is no more.  This new Rock plugs twitter and stars in Mystery Island 2 (Probably not the right name). So I hope that he cuts a great promo on Monday, cause rooting for Cena at Wrestlemania is something that I never wanted to do. But it’s something I may be forced to accept. Come on Rocky!  Please don’t mention twitter.

That’s all I got.  Until next time…

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