Disco Stars Dying, and So Are T.O.'s Chances

Courtesy SF Gate: (L to R) receiver Eddie McGee,
T.O., Raiders Darrius Heyward-Bey, QB Carson Palmer
working out in L.A.

In just the last ten days, those of us old enough to
remember them, lost Robin Gibb of the Bee Gee's and
the Queen of Disco Donna Summer, and in a bit of
related news Terrel Owens fired his agent, Drew
Rosenhaus. Why is there is any relation can either
be an easy guess or a stretch, that depends on your
mindset. For me the deaths of Gibb, and Summer are
in a way indicative of the true death of Disco, not
the imaginary one that rock fans had hoped for way
back when. Terrell Owens making news, any kind of
news this late in his "career", to me is indicative
of the death of his "NFL career".

First he made the mistake of firing Drew Rosenhaus,
and now he says he wants to play for the Raiders.
Can you say crash and burn? If this was 1979, maybe,
but even Al Davis in his later years admitted that
taking chances on troubled players was no longer
something he had interest in. The new regime lead
by GM Reggie McKenzie is definitely not interested,
even though he did work out with Carson Palmer this
off season, and the Raiders wide receivers.

T.O. is really not faring well in his dying (career)
days, so while he's at it he should consider staying
away from the daytime talk show circuit, unless they
are paying him, or it's part of some teams mandatory
obligation.

Tweet Don't Believe In Plays, Believe In Players - Al Davis

Raiders And New GM McKenzie Pick Where They're Supposed To

Photo Lee Kirby / US Presswire

I know that Raider fans wants to make a tremendous
amount of Reggie McKenzie's eye for talent and how
upset they were that they didn't have a 1st or 2nd
round pick in this years draft, but I contend that
drafting their first pick in the 3rd round is right
where they and their new GM belong.

For starters, their 1st round pick is Carson Palmer,
and love him or hate him, I'll take an established
player over a potential one in the draft any day of
the week. With Palmer. good, bad, or otherwise you
know what you have, and since he's your starting QB,
that's has to be pretty good. I won't list the
number of picks that have gone in the top 10 of past
drafts that have failed to produce anything, but if
I did, you could fill a nobody's nobody list of no-
stars that would require much more writing than you
may be willing to read or even recognize.

Secondly, as a life long Raider fan, and even more
so, a life long Al Davis fan I feel comfortable in
saying that his shoes will not only be hard to fill,
but even harder to try on. Davis won FOUR titles in
fifty years (1 AFL Championship, and 3 Super Bowls),
though it wouldn't be fair to McKenzie to hold him
up to those standards, he has won nothing as a head
man. You wanna make the case that he has TWO rings
as a member of the Packers front office, great.
He wasn't the GM for the first(Ron Wolfe), and was
not for the second(Ted Thompson) either. Yes it's
a team, but it's like giving Dan Pastorini credit
for the Super XV title, a bit of an exaggeration, I
know, but you get the idea.

Reggie McKenzie should make a fine GM, but he has
never truly been one before, so it remains to be
seen. Any Raider fan reading this article knows
that winning in the NFL isn't easy, that's why the
Raiders haven't done it for a while. More teams,
more competition, more cheating (See the Saints &
Patriots), and a constantly changing landscape to
any system you think figured it out for you.
The case was always made that Al meddled too much,
well if he had the last time they went to the Super
Bowl, they might have won, but Bill Callahan didn't
have the luxury of Al's meddling or he would have
realized that the former head coach was on the other
sideline with the opponent for that title game.

There are very, very few that can stand shoulder to
shoulder with AL Davis career wise, and Reggie will
be hard pressed to do that. Starting his draft off
in the 3rd round this year, and the 2nd next year,
is probably the best way to gently walk in the shoes
of a man who not only wore them, but designed, and
made them. If Reggie McKenzie truly has an eye for
talent, then he can find it anywhere, NFL history is
littered with late round draft choices from rounds
that don't even exist anymore. So why should today
be any different? Any Raider fan who has a long
history with Al Davis will want to see him earn his
stripes, I do.

Tweet Don't Believe In Plays, Believe In Players - Al Davis

NFL Network Reporter Caught Napping On GM He's Covering

This video certainly isn't meant to embarrass anyone,
but you would think that if you're at a teams draft
headquarters during the draft you could get the name
of the GM correct. Watch Ari Wolfe of the NFL Network
botch it up more than once on LIVE TV. Check out the
sweet VIDEO goodness here.


Tweet Don't Believe In Plays, Believe In Players - Al Davis

Pro Bowl Weekend & NFL's Rooney Rule Takes A Hit

George Rose/Getty Images

With probably less that 10% of all real NFL fans
watching the Pro Bowl this weekend, the league
and it's players get a chance to enjoy themselves,
and not worry about about impressing anyone with
an event that means little to nothing the week
before an event that means everything to many.
Though I am not going to give you any sort of
plan to make the Pro Bowl a better than it is,
it's something that is certainly worth looking
in to.

What is flying under the radar even more than how
boring and uninteresting the Pro Bowl is, is the
fact that the "Rooney Rule" took a little bit of
a hit this past off season. Though I don't think
that it's in any jeopardy of being ignored or
pushed aside in the future, the numbers now that
all the coaches to replace fired coaches have been
hired, have produced a negative step back as opposed
to a status quo or minimal gain. Going into to
the 2011 season there were 8 minority head coaches
in the NFL, seven African American, and one Latino
American(Ron Rivera). Once the season ended, of
the seven coaches relieved of the duties, 3 were
minorities, all African American, and all seven
were replaced by non minority coaches. So where
there was once a 25% presence of minority head
coaches in the league that number is now just a
shade over 15%. The drop of 10% may not seem like
much, but it can't be ignored either, just think
how great a 10% pay raise for you would be, or how
much it would suck if your rent went from $1500 a
month to $1650 a month in just a couple of weeks.

I have never been a fan of the "Rooney Rule" and
neither have some minority groups. You shouldn't
need to force someone to do the right thing, and
by right thing I don't mean force someone to hire
a minority, but rather look at all the candidates
as equally as possible. The Oakland/LA Raiders
hired a Latino American Head Coach long before
this rule, Tom Flores, and he won 2 Super Bowls
for them. They Hired an African American Head
Coach before the rule too, Art Shell, and he had
a winning record throughout in his first stint as
Head Coach. And though the "Rooney Rule" covers
minorities, and not women the Raiders also hired
a female Executive VP who is still on the job today
before this rule was adopted, Amy Trask. A perfect
example of how all you need to do is just hire the
right people, rule or not. We are divided in way
too many ways, so maybe this is a good place to
start ignoring the divisions, and embrace the one
thing that brought us here, Football.

It is also worth noting that this year the Raiders
were one of the three teams that fired their African
American Head Coach, Hue Jackson, but it was done by
their newly hired African American GM Reggie Mckenzie
and that is one place where minorities did make a
gain the the NFL this year, the front office.

Tweet Don't Believe In Plays, Believe In Players - Al Davis

Post Al Davis Era, Raiders Get It Right

AP File

Today was a tremendous day in Raider history, certainly
not bigger than the day Al Davis took over the Raider
franchise, but BIG. It makes the acquisition of Carson
Palmer earlier this season look like a 55th round pick
in the NFL draft, and yet much much smaller than Oct 8th
2011, when all that was Raider Nation changed for ever.

If you are reading this far down, there is a decent chance
you are a Raiders fan, and if you've been a Raiders fan
for more than 20 years then you understand that you cannot
be a Raider fan without being an Al Davis fan. It's like
being a Christian and not liking Christ, or claiming to be
a Scientologist and not believing in L. Ron Hubbard, it's
just not possible. These examples are extreme I know, but
they are as close to the truth as you can get. That being
said, if you hate the Raiders then you hate Al Davis, he is
the total embodiment of what they have become, make no
mistake about it.

Today his name was honored, today Reggie McKenzie was named
the first GM of the Raiders since Al Davis was GM of the
Raiders, but that's not the story, at least not in my eyes.
I have bled Silver and Black longer than most folks I know
have been football fans. You often hear terms like:
"The Cowboy way" or is has to be done "the Patriot way",
well this was done "THE RAIDER WAY", and I couldn't be more
happier with the process than if Al Davis himself came back
to life and approved it. That would be kinda scary though.

So many things happened that made this right. Ron Wolfe, a
long time Raider executive, and friend recommended McKenzie.
Ken Herrock, a former Raider player, and executive also went
on to recommended McKenzie. Mark Davis, Al's son was also
part of the interview process, and yet for me two big factors
were that McKenzie was a Raider, and John Madden assisted in
the interview. For me this was huge. Al Davis inducted John
Madden into the Hall of Fame, and John Madden inducted Davis
into the Hall of Fame, there is and was no one aside than
maybe Ron Wolfe that knew Al, and what he would have wanted
or that would have made me and scores of Raider fans happier
going forward.

McKenzie is a Raider, he has an impeccable reputation in the
league, and I trust that he knows exactly what the RAIDER
way is. When Davis passed I feared that my fandom would fade,
it has, but not enough to not care. I needed to see where the
family went with this, and thus far good steps have been taken.
It will NEVER be the same, change is inevitable, death is part
of life, and football is just a game, and yet we care.

The move today was good. The Raiders still have a chance, not
to be good, but to be "The Raiders", and that's a good thing,
and yet I can't help but think: THINGS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME

NBRHD

Tweet Don't Believe In Plays, Believe In Players - Al Davis