The Al Davis days are gone, sadly!!!

I am just looking forward to seeing Carson Palmer, Darren McFadden and Denarius Moore all on the field at the same time, something that did not occur at anypoint last year.

And as far as not being concerned with the other Peyton, they couldn’t even stop an aging McGahee las year.

Do the Raiders have a chance at the playoffs, yes, but no one, homer or not, can say it’s guaranteed or not. Too many unknowns in the team and division.

Mike Bush is gone. Taiwan or Goodson are the backups? They have yet to show they can do anything of substance.

The only thing I can guarantee is that I will be in Oakland for a bunch of the games! LOL

The Chiefs lost Jamaal Charles, Eric Berry, Tony Moeaki AND Matt Cassel. Don’t give me this crap.

And Raiders fans AND front office people must be delusional now to believe they have a snowballs chance in hell at the playoffs. They’re a bottom of the rung team in the NFL, period.

Enjoy those four wins guys.

1. pre-lisfranc Darren McFadden was the best RB in football last year, by a mile. Look at the stats. Look at the press. It’s not far-fetched to think a healthy McFadden would’ve won the Raiders at-least ten games last year even with the Campbell injury. We won 8 without Run DMC, after all.

2. Kansas City fans love to complain about their injuries, but the Raiders were arguably the most injury decimated team in the league. They lost not only their most dynamic player and MVP candidate Darren McFadden, but also their starting quarterback, starting corner (Chris Johnson), and had nagging injuries to several players that cost them games. Rolando McClain missed the second Broncos game which led to Darryl Blackstock getting torched by Tebow. Michael Huff missed the game against Detroit where Calvin Johnson famously caught a 70 yard pass past Rolando McClain covering underneath because his coverage up top (backup Jerome Boyd) couldn’t stay home. The Raiders were beat up. We’re not even getting into the whopping power vacuum created by losing their owner and general manager in the middle of the year.

3. Al Davis is a legend, but can we all agree he was the one constant in fifty years of Raiders penalty issues? If the Raiders could just cut down their penalties even a smidge this year, maybe 10%, one or two breaks might go their way. For two years, the Raiders have been a very talented team known for shooting themselves in the foot. Marty Schottenheimer used to tell his players on the sideline “We don’t need to beat the Raiders, let the Raiders beat themselves” and those days are gone.

4. Using that same logic, consider that for the first time in thirty years, the Raiders will be implementing a “modern” scheme on defense. Gone are the days where opposing quarterbacks say in interviews that “You know what the Raiders are going to do, they keep it simple, yadda yadda yadda”. That has to count for something, right?

Every year people love to look at teams on paper and forget that dark horses emerge. Who picked Tebow to start? Or even lead the Broncos to the division title? Just a little smidge improvement in defense and penalties and a little smidge improvement in health and the Raiders contend. It’s simple really.

The defense can’t be any worse than last year with a scheme from the 2012 instead of the scheme Al Davis ran from the ’70s despite the loss of several players. Now that they are going to zone coverage, the team’s D line which is among the best in the NFL (Seymour, Kelly, Houston, and Shaughnessey) will have the ability to put pressure on the QB, something they haven’t been able to do under Al Davis for several years.

I hope the confidence doesn’t come from how close they came to sneaking into the playoffs last year, but instead in what they see in practice.

McFadden plays at least 15 games, Carson having a full offseason helps. Hopefully it helps in cutting the interceptions.

The defense is the biggest question. Will they allow a lot of these run heavy teams on the schedule run all over them or finally strat to stop or at least slow down the run.

This team is underrated by many. This team aren’t the same old Raiders!

Even with losing Al Davis, Darren McFadden and Jason campbell, they missed the playoffs by 1 game.