Sure, Art Shell isn't the coach of the Oakland Raiders anymore, but according to the inhuman automatons that serve as the Raider's PR department, Shell and Old Lady Davis are discussing ways for "Art to remain a valued member of the Raider organization."
Make no mistake, the Shell-led ("led" may be too strong a term here) Raiders were fucking awful. Terrible, terrible.
But the Yahoo article I linked to above, while not really commenting on the stats it throws out there, throws out some pretty interesting stats all the same.
2003, Bill Callahan went 4-12
Under Norv Turner, in the 2004 and 2005 seasons, the Raiders went 9-23.
Aside from the Jon Gruden era, and the team he put together (Callahan did reach the Super Bowl with Gruden's team), this has been a pretty miserable franchise since 1994, and was particularly miserable in the years preceding Art Shell's hire, averaging a little over 4 wins a season. May I suggest that it may not be just a head coach issue here? Who's the GM for this squadron? Is Old Lady Davis still calling the shots? Is it taking all his front office flunkies all their effort to keep Davis from re-signing Jim Plunkett for big money? He's a senile old coot, is what I'm saying.
This team was probably one real quarterback away from being a dangerous team. You can have your LaMont Jordan, but he can only generate so much offense when he is facing 8 and 9 men fronts. You have Randy Moss and a cadre of decent receivers. No defense is going to be scared of them when you've got Aaron Brooks and Andrew Walter attempting to chuck the ball at them.
Vikings fans, as a special bonus to you, here's the graf from the Yahoo article above featuring Randy Moss. Let me ask you, does this sound familiar?
Shell was unable to generate much at all from big-play receiver Randy Moss, another player who criticized the staff. Moss complained about being worked too hard, said things were "fishy" and speculated that he might be better off on another team.
And then Joe Buck rushed in to explode with displeasure at Moss' skills at Charades, which he said were pathetic, and apologized for everyone who had to watch it.
Art Shell shouldn't accept the shitty ass job the Raiders give him. He should go somewhere else, and hope for the best. Run away from that franchise, Art. Run the fuck away. Before Al tries to make you board his Spruce Moose.
13 comments:
I was the biggest Jon Gruden fan, and against letting him get away (even for multiple high draft choices), but he didn't 'put the team together'. Even casual NFL observers know that Davis is the general manager, and ok's every decision. Anyway, the Raider's problem has never been talent evaluation. Its just that (and its obviously a huge problem) Davis doesn't allow coaches to have enough authority in the day to day running of the team. All Raiders have always known that Davis is the only real voice of authority, and this obviously doesn't serve limp noodles like Bill Callahan and Norv Turner well. Gruden wasn't scared of Davis, and was able to successfully establish his own identity, but its silly to say that he built the team.
Here's a proposal. The Raiders trade their senile old coot owner for the 'Skins senile old cool 'legendary' coach. We'll even throw in the clothes.
My advice to Art Shell, hang around oakland (or where ever they are this year) as long as you can, because no other football team is going to want to touch you and you don't have the sunny disposition to be a Walmart greeter
I saw a special on TV where elephants housed in an African reserve started trampling and killing the other animals (hippo's for the most part). The young bull elephants were totally out of control after the elder bull passed away. So, a wise zookeeper obtained a older elephant and released it in the preserve. That very day, the chaos ended. The success of the Raiders under Gruden was wise old players, Brown, Rice, Gannon, Woodson - but these vets are gone and the young bulls are out of control. Get a few savy inspirational vets on the team and you will see improvement. And yes, I did compare a football team to a herd of elephants, African elephants to be exact. Offensive? I hope so.
Muumuu, Thanyou for your attempts to make the rest of us look sophisticated by comparison. I'm sure we'll forget it soon enough, but its appreciated none the less.
I'll just have to assume Juicy No-wood was being rhetorically ironic when he wrote "the Raider's problem has never been talent evaluation."
That made me laugh so hard, milk came out of my nose. I hope that was milk.
The Raiders talent evaluation has always been bizarre to the point of cliche: they are the last refuge of the felonious scoundrel. The Raiders have specialized in gold-medalist receivers with snowshoes for hands, steroidic freaks, legally-challenged thugs and over-the-hill junkers.
They brought in Aaron fucking Brooks to be the savior -- what does that tell you? THIS IS A TEAM THAT ALMOST SUITED UP JEFF GEORGE.
It is inappropriate to compare the Raiders to African Elephants. They are much more akin to what African Elephants leave in huge steaming piles around the savannah.
The Raiders are bad and will be bad for a long time.
And don't drag Joe "Three Time World Champion" Gibbs down into this.
"If you love roids and crack,
it's the silver & black."
If you mean he was brought in to be the savior because he signed what amounts to a 1 year contract with almost no signing bonus, then yeah I agree. All hail Aaron Brooks. If you want to talk about saviors, maybe we'd like to revisit the subject of Adam Archuleta's $10 million signing bonus... or perhaps the 'lengendary' Joe Gibbs... or the vaunted Saunders offense... or a little farther back, Deion Sanders.... or Bruce Smith... or more recentely, Mark Brunnel.
Ooooh, lest I forget, giving away most of your first day draft picks for TJ Duckett or Brandon Lloyd. I gotsta admit that Al Davis is looking mighty shaky these days (probably being kind), but its hard to see how he doesn't stack up favorably to Joe Gibbs. Especially since Snyder has been trying to hide his obvious dementia by hiring multimillion dollar assistants to do the actual coaching. And yet, he still fucks it up.
Really Mr. Nowood? O.K. then, the Raider's high point of the season was thier defence lead by Warren Sapp (12 years in the NFL). I think the rest of the starting D has 12 years total experience - but played well this year. Excluding Zack, I think Moss has the most NFL experience on the offense but it's well documented his attitude is for shit. It's hard to bitch about practice when Rice is out running routes at 6:00 a.m., not so hard when Moss and Porter aren't even trying on Sunday and displaying enjoyment when their QB gets pounded.
While I won't defend the craptacular Redskins, partiuclarly of this year, I will point out that in the last 2 years, Joe Gibbs has won as many football games as the various Head Coaches of the Raiders have won in the past FOUR years.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Jerious Norwood.
And the Raiders have sucked. Congratulations, Skins fans with your coaching 'legend'. If you're reduced to that kind of logic, it makes it even funnier that you can talk about anyone else's team.
It seems to me that Mike Tice won more games in his last two seasons than Gibbs has won in his last two( I am sure one of you idiot savants will find out for sure), no need to mention the Raiders W-L's because we all know they are the worst team in the league and the previous two seasons do not change that assesment. Any way you look at it, its poopy
I'm not happy about it, but you leave me no choice.......
How many championships have the Vikes won?
See... there. You made me go there. I hope you're happy.
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