Friday, January 05, 2007

Raiders Shell Art

So the Raiders have sacked off Art Shell after a difficult year. I’m not surprised; however I do feel for the man. He was brought into an organisation which was sliding beyond belief and had no direction.
No although Mr. Petrol made no dent in overall record he certainly made a few key changes. The defence which was a sham last year was actually ranked rather highly this year, surprisingly so when compared to their final record. However with 2 inept Quarterbacks taking snaps and no O’line help the Raiders were doomed from the start. Everyone knows LaMont Jordan is a quality RB; just check his stats from last year. He’ big but explosive, the key attribute in a RB arsenal. Yet he had the same problems as The Edge in Arizona, he had no help up front. Randy Moss and Jerry Porter might as well have sprouted roots the effort they made this season. And the O’line needs some serious changes.
But the defence still played hard and well despite spending most of their time on the field whilst the offence relaxed on the sideline. In Kirk Morrison and Thomas Howard the Raiders have a good core of LBs to work with, and Darnell Bing should be back next season. Pitch that in with a years worth of work for Michael Huff and you have a solid youth base to work from as well as the experienced (yet good) veterans up front in Derrick Burgess and Warren Sapp. Roll all that together and the defence looks solid if not spectacular.
So with Mr. Petrol gone the next coach has pretty much no pressure on him from the media and experts. He has a solid base on D to work from. I think it’s clear where the Raiders are going to look to get help from the draft and free agency, unless Al Davis pokes his nose in (Janikowski anyone!!!).

Bye bye Nick Saban. Is anyone surprised? The whole issue about him going to Alabama was settled weeks ago. No one lets an issue like this hover around for 5 solid weeks without there being some truth in it. Apparently he deliberated for 2 days, yeah right, and I have declared myself for this years draft. Nick, no one actually believed you were staying in Miami next year, you could have at least been honest with your former employers and the Dolphins fans, a bit of common decency would have been nice. It’s a small world Nick, a very small world.

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good for people to know.

9:14 PM, November 11, 2008  

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