We’ve reached the point in the season where Jon Gruden openly chuckles at questions he clearly finds annoying. “That almost makes me laugh — who do you want to see?,” the Las Vegas Raiders head coach sharply answered when asked if the final game is an opportunity to play younger players and see what they
For Gruden and Raiders, 8-8 would be progress
Sorry, Ray, I completely disagree. 8-8 is not an improvement and we all knew that the offense needed to do more than “just enough” for the team to succeed this season. Going 2-5 after a 6-3 start is not a good enough improvement over last year’s 1-5 nose dive. The Broncos are a hungry team and I have some serious doubts that the Raiders are going to finish with a win. Hungry team, divisional foe, road game, weather . . . all things that do not bode well for the Raiders. I sure they prove me wrong, but even with a win, this year is another disappointing season in almost twenty years of disappointing seasons.
8-8 is an improvement from a W-L perspective but not from a morale standpoint
Improvement? Wut?
The only thing the team improved was moving the ball in between the 20’s.
I guess despite being inconsistent in the red zone the Raiders scored more points this year too. Unfortunately counteracted by the defence which was even worse than last year.
So let’s put this improvement in context. Gruden took over a 6 win team after the 2017 season and we might just see him deliver 8 this year…. not much return for the master plan based on trades to build through the draft and getting top FAs in because of Chucky’s genius.
Our improvement is so great that we still can’t make the play-offs with the field expanded to 7 teams per conference. For the record, if the season had actually been extended and the number of play-off teams increased to 8, we STILL wouldn’t be in. We are still in the bottom half of the AFC for yet another year!
Some improvement….
I can just imagine what the Raiders would look like had a guy like Ozzie Newsome been making their draft picks instead of the $100 million clueless cartoon character. With all the cap room and early picks in the first two rounds in the last few years I have no doubt this team would be in the playoffs…and be on a trajectory to be a great franchise again.
It makes me crazy thinking about all those wasted picks…Gruden thinking he is a genius and reaching more than a fishing rod.