Post by TheShadow on Dec 5, 2003 21:53:37 GMT -5
www.oaklandtribune.com
By Art Spander
SURE WE'RE spoiled, and we have a right to be. We know what good football is, and we had it for maybe longer than we deserved, although if anybody is deserving it's us, the chosen people of the Bay Area.
We also know what bad football is, and now we have that.
This season is done for the Raiders and the 49ers, and in typical sporting fashion, not that we're experienced in that regards, normally we'd insist, "Wait till next year." Except this might be next year. This might be the year we look back and say we didn't know it could be any worse. Perhaps in never so small a geographical distance have there been two NFL franchises with more unanswered questions, and not only about whom they will have in uniform, which is a question that can't be underestimated.
Who knows where the Raiders will be playing in a couple of years, with all the threats and the lawsuits and the broadcasts of games down to Los Angeles, as if anyone down there gives a hoot.
Who knows where the 49ers will be playing, and despite tradition and history and other items deftly disregarded in the 21st century, the Niners could end up in a different town, even, if the Chargers and Raiders hesitate, Los Angeles.
You're not the dumbest football fans in America.
You know the Niners are never going to get their stadium and brushless car wash-Starbucks facility ever built. They're doomed forever in Pigsty Park, unless they move to a new city. And when attendance goes in the dumper in the coming years because the audience around here isn't going to accept mediocrity much less wretchedness, that alternative will look better and better. Especially to an owner who reportedly slapped the wallet in his back pocket and told employees, "We're going to be thinking of this."
But John York should understand what the guy who controls the Raiders always has understood. The only thing that matters is winning.
Fans don't care about your problems, your reasons, your excuses. If you can't afford to put a champion on the field, then bring in someone who is able. Or they'll stop attending.
Candlestick used to be half-empty until Bill Walsh and Eddie DeBartolo Jr., and Joe Montana and Ronnie Lott, turned the franchise into a success. And it very well could be half-empty again.
Which brings us to the Raiders, who to be technical haven't had a full house all season, given the fact the only sellout was achieved when ABC and KGO-TV desperately gobbled up the several thousand tickets remaining before the Monday night game against K.C. so it would be seen on local TV.
The Raiders have a stadium, if not one of the glass-and-steel marvels in places such as Seattle and Baltimore. What they don't have is a sense of direction. The presumption is Bill Callahan will be discharged as coach at the end of this, his second season. Then what? With two exceptions, Mike Shanahan in 1988 and Jon Gruden in 1998, Al Davis always has hired from within, mainly so the individual understands the chain of command. Al isn't going to relinquish power to a Bill Parcells or Bill Belichick any more than he's going to stop suing Oakland and the NFL and whoever else is in the line of fire.
That means the Raiders will be coached by someone already on the Raiders. Your guess is as good as mine.
Do the Niners want to make any deal at all? Terrell Owens is going to end up with the Falcons. Julian Peterson could get millions somewhere else. And how do you sign free agents, yours or theirs, if you don't want to spend?
There was this wonderful imagined scenario a couple of years back that Gruden would finish up the 2002 season with the Raiders and then be signed by the Niners, while Mariucci, an offensive whiz, would then become coach of the Raiders. However, Al traded Gruden to the Bucs, and York fired Mariucci.
Now Dennis Erickson is the Niners' coach and headed for a losing season, and Bill Callahan is the Raiders' coach and guaranteed a losing season. It all happened rather suddenly, as so often is the case in sport. And an optimist might point out it could turn around just as suddenly.
There's only one problem.
It won't.
By Art Spander
SURE WE'RE spoiled, and we have a right to be. We know what good football is, and we had it for maybe longer than we deserved, although if anybody is deserving it's us, the chosen people of the Bay Area.
We also know what bad football is, and now we have that.
This season is done for the Raiders and the 49ers, and in typical sporting fashion, not that we're experienced in that regards, normally we'd insist, "Wait till next year." Except this might be next year. This might be the year we look back and say we didn't know it could be any worse. Perhaps in never so small a geographical distance have there been two NFL franchises with more unanswered questions, and not only about whom they will have in uniform, which is a question that can't be underestimated.
Who knows where the Raiders will be playing in a couple of years, with all the threats and the lawsuits and the broadcasts of games down to Los Angeles, as if anyone down there gives a hoot.
Who knows where the 49ers will be playing, and despite tradition and history and other items deftly disregarded in the 21st century, the Niners could end up in a different town, even, if the Chargers and Raiders hesitate, Los Angeles.
You're not the dumbest football fans in America.
You know the Niners are never going to get their stadium and brushless car wash-Starbucks facility ever built. They're doomed forever in Pigsty Park, unless they move to a new city. And when attendance goes in the dumper in the coming years because the audience around here isn't going to accept mediocrity much less wretchedness, that alternative will look better and better. Especially to an owner who reportedly slapped the wallet in his back pocket and told employees, "We're going to be thinking of this."
But John York should understand what the guy who controls the Raiders always has understood. The only thing that matters is winning.
Fans don't care about your problems, your reasons, your excuses. If you can't afford to put a champion on the field, then bring in someone who is able. Or they'll stop attending.
Candlestick used to be half-empty until Bill Walsh and Eddie DeBartolo Jr., and Joe Montana and Ronnie Lott, turned the franchise into a success. And it very well could be half-empty again.
Which brings us to the Raiders, who to be technical haven't had a full house all season, given the fact the only sellout was achieved when ABC and KGO-TV desperately gobbled up the several thousand tickets remaining before the Monday night game against K.C. so it would be seen on local TV.
The Raiders have a stadium, if not one of the glass-and-steel marvels in places such as Seattle and Baltimore. What they don't have is a sense of direction. The presumption is Bill Callahan will be discharged as coach at the end of this, his second season. Then what? With two exceptions, Mike Shanahan in 1988 and Jon Gruden in 1998, Al Davis always has hired from within, mainly so the individual understands the chain of command. Al isn't going to relinquish power to a Bill Parcells or Bill Belichick any more than he's going to stop suing Oakland and the NFL and whoever else is in the line of fire.
That means the Raiders will be coached by someone already on the Raiders. Your guess is as good as mine.
Do the Niners want to make any deal at all? Terrell Owens is going to end up with the Falcons. Julian Peterson could get millions somewhere else. And how do you sign free agents, yours or theirs, if you don't want to spend?
There was this wonderful imagined scenario a couple of years back that Gruden would finish up the 2002 season with the Raiders and then be signed by the Niners, while Mariucci, an offensive whiz, would then become coach of the Raiders. However, Al traded Gruden to the Bucs, and York fired Mariucci.
Now Dennis Erickson is the Niners' coach and headed for a losing season, and Bill Callahan is the Raiders' coach and guaranteed a losing season. It all happened rather suddenly, as so often is the case in sport. And an optimist might point out it could turn around just as suddenly.
There's only one problem.
It won't.