First the Raiders waxed general manager Reggie McKenzie on Monday then pull a reported $7.5 million one-year lease at the Coliseum for 2019 from the city of Oakland after an antitrust lawsuit was filed by the Town.
Who would have thought after landing a haymaker right onto the chin (or Big Ben’s ribs) of the Pittsburgh Steelers via  24-21 win, the Raiders would create two more whallops of newsworthy material mere days later?
Deuces Reggie McKenzie and … Oakland!?
What a week it’s been for the Silver & Black.
But alas, here Raider Nation is. Pondering who exactly will be tapped the next executive to join the Jon Gruden Express and will the Christmas Eve Monday Night tilt against the Denver Broncos truly be the last Raider home game in Oakland.
First to McKenzie. He had an unenviable task demolishing and rebuilding the Raiders after the Al Davis era. He’s a supreme capologist but less-than-stellar personnel man when it came to the draft. But once Gruden got his eye-opening contract, McKenzie was dead man walking in Alameda. You’re not paying a coach $100 million on a 10-year pact to be second fiddle to anyone in the organization, namely a lame-duck general manager who was forced upon said coach. McKenzie is well-respected around the league and will land on his feet.
The stadium issue, however, has no legs to stand on, at the moment. Â
The Raiders are all set to play its inaugural season in Las Vegas in 2020, but the suit filed by Oakland most likely hastens the team’s departure.
“All options are open,” owner Mark Davis told reporters at the NFL owners meeting in Dallas on Wednesday when they asked where the Raiders would end up for the 2019 campaign.
“I’ve got two words for the lawsuit and I used them the other day,” Davis continued. “One is meritless. And the other one, the attorneys will understand, is malicious. And I’ll leave it at that and I’ll let the attorneys do all the rest of the speaking.”
NFL commish Roger Goodell noted the league wants to know by January or February where the Raiders intend to play its home games for schedule-making purposes.
And while Oakland remains in play, just where the team calls home in 2019 is up in the air.
Time to hit those Quick Slants:
- Seth Roberts just does enough to merit his roster spot, doesn’t he? He caught a 39-yard dime from Derek Carr to set Oakland up on the seven-yard line for the go-ahead touchdown in the waning moments of Sunday’s clash.
- Speaking of Carr … it took quite a while, but the $125 million QB is settled in Gruden’s offense and we’re seeing some damn fine throws. With how Carr performs with a no-name receiver unit, one has to wonder if the Raiders can continue to get by with an OK WR corp and use those monies/cap space elsewhere…
- Amari Cooper is lighting it up for Dallas. He’s even smiling and talking smack. Nice. Yet, don’t give me the “Cowboys won this trade” gimmick. We won’t know until the Raiders do something with the first-round pick they got in exchange for the wideout.
- Oh, and another thing, if you subscribe to the notion “the Raiders won’t get an impact player like Cooper with that first rounder they got from Dallas”, I must say, you suffer from bullshititis. Get that checked out, will you?
- Gareon Conley is quickly becoming what the Raiders envisioned — a sticky cover corner. The second-year man out of Ohio State is proving the DBU moniker the institution carries is legit.
- I’ve bagged on his ability to make the return game or punting unit stellar, but special team’s boss Rich Bisaccia has really done some outstanding work with kicker Daniel Carlson.
- Doesn’t Derek Carrier sound like a Bizarro World version of Derek Carr? One that is bulked up and became a tight end instead of a gunslinger.
- Lee Smith = Touchdown Machine. Nice to see the Raiders take advantage of team’s literally not covering the “plodding blocking” tight end seriously in the passing game.
- C.J. Anderson, we hardly knew ye…
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