Twinkie defense wrote:FireNellieQuick wrote:Reggie being on a 2 year deal - which, BTW, they will honor
Mark Davis will honor Reggie's contract, meaning Reggie will get paid for two more seasons. I would put good money on the fact that, if the Raiders have another 3- or 4-win season next year, Reggie is gone. Mark Davis came close to firing Reggie already, and his endorsements now are lukewarm - he says "Reggie is under contract for two more years." Yeah no kidding.
christ, if you didn't know that a bad franchise takes typically about 3 years to turn around, you haven't lived long enough. i have been fortunate enough to be alive and living for all three raiders championship years, although was too young to remember much other than Marcus Allen going off on the last one.
as much as I loved and respected the old man Al, he did put us in a grand canyon sized hole that i personally thought it may take 5 or 6 years to be competitive, minimum, when he passed. RIP for his true raider-ness but all of us also - well, most of us, knew going into this season that we had by far the toughest schedule in all of NFL, with one of the weakest if not the weakest collection of talents before a single snap was played. when i paid for my subscription for directv' NFL sunday ticket, i even told my wife that i didn't even know why i was paying to watch games this season when i know we would probably lose all of them. well we didn't, and every game we won or came close was a pure bliss at least for me.
Reggie has done 3 major things that i didn't think could happen easily.
#1, no more Al Davis Scholarship Program. this means no more average to above average talents getting paid as if they were a top superstars in this league. God bless Al, but my goodness, he was not seeing things right when he signed Standford Routt to that deal to replace Nnamdi, going all in on Tommy Kelly's deal, trading away a fortune to get washed up Randy Moss or Richard Seymour, wasting a pick after a pick to draft mediocre players like Mike Mitchell, or head cases like McClain or Russell.
#2, building this young inexperienced team with mentors by signing cheap, seasoned vets who have won it all that can show them the ropes like Justin Tuck and Charles Woodson. I am especially happy to see the old heisman trophy touting Woodson back in Black. I was a big fan of him since his Michigan days, and even nearly chose to go to Michigan for my grad school simply to enjoy games at that stadium. getting young guys with talent and promise and giving them playing time is one thing, but having guys to teach them how to do it right from players perspective is priceless.
#3. he did it in a relatively short amount of time. as i said before, because of all the crippling contracts Al had given out, I didn't think we could clean the house as quickly as we did. i honestly thought we would resign Veldheer and Houston. turned out they too were very wise decisions as neither are better than our current options. Penn > Jared and anybody we have at DL > injured Lamaar.
we already have a QB that almost all the experts around the NFL phrases, whether you like him or not, and we have a ton of flexibility, whether you approve of it or not, and frankly, for the first time since Chucky left, i actually feel good about our chances in the next two three years to make the playoffs and make some noise.
remember, we have won the Super Bowl as a wildcard. once you make it into the playoffs, anything is possible.
ehhhhh f it.
