Columnist Ann Killion gives Raiders a dubious honor.
In 1-5 starts, local NFL teams offer few highlights
In a fitting bit of scheduling, the 49ers and the Raiders will play each other on the Day of the Dead. November 1: Dia de los Muertos. For both teams, this is turning into La Temporada de
los Muertos. A season of the dead. Once again. Both local NFL teams sit at 1-5 and their seasons are effectively over. Both appear to be playing for nothing more than pride, draft positioning and next year. Again. So which team is worse? That’s easy. Once again, the Raiders take the awkwardly worded crown: Most Disappointing in Yet Another Season of Crushing Disappointment. Why? Let’s count the reasons.
1. Expectation level. Niners fans are so beaten down that they don’t expect too much of anything. Sure, they invested all their hope in Jimmy Garoppolo, but once he went down to a season-ending knee injury, the fan base reverted to the default spot they’ve occupied for most of the past 15 years: downtrodden.
In contrast, the Raiders have whipped their own
abused fan base into a frenzy of hope over the past two seasons. In 2016, the team went 12-4 and likely would have won at least one playoff game had Derek Carr not gotten hurt. The Raiders looked to have all the pieces of the puzzle in place: solid young quarterback, a generational player on defense, a new vibe and culture. After the disappointment of 2017, Raider Nation bought in again because Jon Gruden arrived and promised big things for Oakland. Expectations skyrocketed once again.
Despite his words when he was hired, Gruden has decided this team isn’t any good. He traded Khalil Mack, the best player. He doesn’t seem to like many of the current players. He regularly talks about a rebuild. And the product has been abysmal. After jacking everyone’s expectations to hyper-speed, the start of this season has been like a high-impact crash.
2. The long game. That’s another reason the 49ers hold the edge over the Raiders in the tussle for Team Titanic. Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch are only in the second year of sixyear contracts, and they let everyone know from the start that this was going to be a long, protracted rebuild. Last year’s season-ending five-game run of victories accelerated the timeline in a lot of people’s minds, but few realists thought this team would be better than .500.
The Raiders? There is no long game for the Oakland fans. They could be down to their last five games in their rightful home depending on what happens next season in the acrimonious relationship between owner and city. Gruden may be in only the first year of a 10-year deal — a contract that no one really expects him to finish out — but we are already in the countdown to goodbye. That makes the product on the field look even worse.
3. A pulse. The 49ers are the Least Dead of the Day of the Dead teams because they actually show life. Sure, there are no moral victories in the NFL, but the 49ers have exhibited energy and fight in a couple of tough losses. On Monday night, they played a superior team down to the wire.
“Last night was a heartbreaking loss,” Shanahan said the next day. “Our guys came out and I thought played extremely aggressive, very confident and gave it their all.”
In contrast, the Raiders have barely shown up. The team traveled 14 hours to London to be fully embarrassed Sunday. The Raiders look like a group who doesn’t know if they’re on the right track or what’s expected of them, one that doesn’t feel confident.
Because of the hype around Gruden, the fact that the Raiders were a good team 18 months ago and the bitterness over the team’s impending exit and the Mack trade, the Raiders have already won the Battle of the Bad Teams, even though it won’t really take place for another two weeks.
After a decade of hearing nothing but praise while inside the “Monday Night Football” booth, Gruden seems sensitive to the criticism heading his way.
“I’ll say this, we aren’t tanking anything,” he said this week. “I hear the hatred out there, some of the rumors that we are tanking to get a firstround pick, or a higher pick. We are not getting up at 4 o’clock in the morning to tank it. Ain’t nobody tanking it.”
So does that mean the Raiders aren’t trying to “Suck for the Duck” in a bid to replace Carr with Oregon’s Justin Herbert — many analysts’ pick for the top quarterback prospect of next spring’s draft?
Too early to say. What we do know is there will not be much winning in Oakland this season. While 49ers fans always knew they were in a rebuild, the Raiders fans didn’t expect it right now. But that’s where they are.
“I’m excited about the rookie class,” Gruden said this week. “I’ve been accused my whole life of hating rookies and liking old players and now I’m playing 10 rookies.
“What do you say to that, America?”
Jon, America isn’t watching. The season is already over.