The fan-on-fan violence that marred Saturday’s game between the Raiders and 49ers will result in the NFL to stop scheduling the teams to play each other in the preseason.
Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury-News reports that the 49ers and Raiders will end their annual exhibition game. The local police strongly support ending the preseason rivalry, Kawakami reports.
It’s a shame that the actions of a handful of fans are going to end an annual preseason game that tens of thousands of fans have attended without causing any trouble, but if the local police think Raiders and 49ers fans can’t be controlled around each other, then canceling the annual tradition of having them play each other is probably the right move.
Of course, the Raiders and 49ers will still meet every four years in the regular season. We can only hope that in 2014, when the 49ers are slated to visit the Black Hole, Saturday night’s ugly scene won’t be repeated.