RAIDERS OF THE LOST SPARK
The 1-7 record, the teardown, the move to Sin City. It’s getting ugly in Oakland — some NFL clubs are just perennial black holes.
On Thursday night, the Oakland Raiders lost by 31 points to a one-win team that was starting Nick Mullens, a third-string quarterback who in his almost invisible two-year pro career had been cut, re-signed, waived, cut and stashed on the practice roster. Afterwards, Raiders coach Jon Gruden, in the first year of a 10-year, $100million U.S. contract, said he believed players still wanted to play for the organization, because “I think the brand of the Raiders is an exciting one.”
There are a lot of flashy things happening in the NFL this year, and some things keep changing. Young stars like Patrick Mahomes have emerged! The Rams are a powerhouse! Tom Brady is 14th in passer rating, behind Mitch Trubisky! In related news, Rob Gronkowski is now a living hangover, rather than a living party. It’s a bummer.
But some things don’t fundamentally change, not really. In the last 20 years the five teams with the worst cumulative winning percentages, in descending order, are Buffalo, Houston, Oakland, Detroit and Cleveland. The Texans were an expansion team in 2002, so it makes sense: they won 24 games in their first five seasons and have only had three losing seasons since. Detroit won 33 games in nine seasons between 2001-09 and then got Matt Stafford, a quarterback who is good enough to win just enough games to be respectable-ish. Wait until he breaks Drew Brees’s career yardage record. It’ll be kind of weird.
And then there are Buffalo, Oakland and Cleveland, and they are black holes of sadness again. Cleveland was an expansion team too, but they never got better. The Browns fired head coach Hue Jackson and offensive co-ordinator Todd Haley this week after a 2-5-1 start in which the Browns lost one game in overtime on a blocked field goal, and another in overtime to the longest overtime field goal ever. They’re coached by Bountygate coach Gregg Williams now! The Cavaliers are imploding, the Indians might sell their veterans, but in Cleveland, the Browns just Browned their way through the week.
Buffalo, meanwhile, has two wins and also some of the worst quarterbacking in history. Nathan Peterman has thrown an interception every nine passes in his career. Every nine passes! This year it’s been every eight, and he’s starting this weekend. Rookie Josh Allen was thrown into the meat grinder, and he’s last in the NFL in passer rating among qualified QBs. Veteran Derek Anderson will hopefully buy a boat with the money he got for his 70 pass attempts before getting concussed. The Bills are on track for the worst offence in NFL history, and might not even be bad enough to get the No. 1 pick. Classic Bills.
The Raiders could be, though! One win and the players appear to be quitting on the coach, after he quit on them first. Khalil Mack was traded, Amari Cooper was traded, and what is left is a bunch of guys who can lose by 31 to a quarterback nobody outside of Mississippi had ever heard of. In a year and a half, the Raiders will move to Las Vegas to compete with the hockey team that stole the city’s hearts within minutes, and what’s going to be left?
The thing is, it’s not an accident. Buffalo and Oakland and Cleveland have all changed owners over the years, but the owners are still bad. All you can really say for them is this: Beyond the brief bits of joy — Buffalo makes the playoffs, Cleveland wins a game — at least they make other fan bases happy. At least other teams have someone to kick around. At least it gives kids like Nick Mullens the dream moment of his first NFL start, on national TV, against a bunch of deadeyed men who are already wondering what it would be like to play somewhere, anywhere, else. The world needs losers sometimes.
Last week, this space went 6-8. We’re not Raiders-bad yet! As always, all lines could change.