The following is a work of satire and humor about the Las Vegas Raiders. It may contain coarse or offensive language or imagery.
On football, Raiders, and humor
Greetings, Raider Nation! It is I, the creamer in your coffee, the honey mustard on your turkey sandwich, the tonic in your gin, and the World’s Most Dangerous Professional Football Humorist, Raiderdamus the Great and Powerful. It is with great joy that I return to you today after an extended amount of time away. But be assured that Raiderdamus is here to stay, and will once again brighten and edify your day by bringing you the words of the Great Beyond.
Before I begin, I’d like to say a few words about the value of humor. We as football fans often take our fandom, and the sport itself, very seriously. Being a fan of a particular team is a form of tribalism. The Raiders are our tribe, and we don’t like those Broncos or Chiefs fans over there, who are part of another one.
Our favorite thing to do is to have two tribes fight each other, and football is the expression of that. But there’s another factor at work here, in that such tribalism makes the team a part of our identity. As such, any criticism leveled against the team or its players can be construed as an insult to us on a personal level. People get very sensitive when you criticize “their team”, whether that team sucks or not.
The way to combat this is by keeping a healthy sense of humor. It’s okay for others to make fun of you, or your team, and it’s important that we be able to laugh at ourselves, and to be able to point out when the Emperor has no clothes. No person, and no team, is above reproach or criticism.
What does Raiderdamus have to say about the Raiders in Week 13?
What Raiderdamus does is insult everyone equally- there is no prejudice here. Every team, and every person, sucks in their own special way. If you dish it out, you should be ready to take it, and vice versa. I say this, not only because people these days are too sensitive, but because what follows is going to include some very mean things said about the Jets. If I know anything about New Yorkers, they can take it and dish it out with a mastery not often seen outside of Philadelphia.
To this end, I have once again contacted the Great Beyond. He has graciously awoken from his long slumber to bring us a vision of what shall occur in Week 13. Here is what the Great Beyond has to say:
“Back again I see! I wasn’t sure if you’d ever call upon me again, especially now after that Falcons game last week. The Raiders laid an egg so foul I smelled it here in the afterlife. Anyway, best put that behind us. Who you got this week? The Jets? Oh, so you have a bye week. Must be nice to have two in one season. Even if it’s not a serious challenge, the Raiders still have to play this game. And I still have to crack some jokes, although nothing I can say will be a bigger joke than the Jets themselves.”
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There’s nothing funny about the Jets
The Jets’ current owner is Woody Johnson, who is a joke. If Mark Davis’ haircut were a human being, its name would be Woody Johnson. Johnson has made one blunder after another, hiring a string of utterly incompetent coaches and general managers. The Miami Dolphins fired their current head coach, Adam Gase, at the time the worst franchise in football. Johnson didn’t care and he hired him regardless. If you’ve ever owned two dogs at the same time, perhaps you’ve seen one of them throw up, and then the other one comes along and laps it up. It’s unpleasant, but that’s what the Jets did, they hired Gase after the Dolphins could no longer stomach him.
Gase has previously got the “offensive guru” label. However, he simply happened to be Broncos’ offensive coordinator when Peyton Manning was in Denver. I have eaten a Papa John’s pizza and also a chicken parm sandwich. Therefore, I have done as much for Peyton Manning’s career as Adam Gase ever did. Does that make me qualified to coach the Jets? No, but at this point, I can’t do any worse than Gase.
The Jets used to have a superfan. His name was Fireman Ed and wore a hardhat to all Jets home games. If you want to talk about making your team into your identity, there’s Exhibit A. But even he reached his breaking point and stopped going to games. The level of buffoonery is simply too high. Let’s revisit some classic Jets blunders:
The Jets have historically been bad
The Jets have been, arguably, the worst team at the draft in the history of the NFL. Darrelle Revis will likely get into the Hall of Fame as a Jet. However, the only Hall of Fame player the Jets have chosen in the Player Selection Meeting was John Riggins, who rose to prominence as a member of the Washington Football Team.
The Jets are so bad that, in 1997, Peyton Manning could have declared for the draft. Smartly, Manning went back to Tennessee so he could lose to Florida one more time, and the Jets traded the top pick to the Rams. The Rams selected Orlando Pace, who was a key component of the Greatest Show on Turf and is now in the Hall of Fame. The Jets took James Farrior, who was a good player but is not in the Hall. The Jets really dodged a bullet there.
The best player in Jets history is easily Joe Namath, whom they took in the 1964 AFL Draft, and 12th by the Cardinals in the NFL Draft, held the same day. The quarterback would have signed with the Cardinals, except they wanted him to sign before the Orange Bowl that year.
Their lone Super Bowl win was ages ago
Namath wanted to play in the game, and he did, and then signed with the Jets the following day. He was the first pro quarterback to throw for over 4,000 yards, which he did only once, in 1967. Today, he is famous for wearing pantyhose and drunkenly harassing Suzy Kolber on live television. Keep in mind he remains the only Jets quarterback to surpass 4,000 yards in a season. Also, he is still their all-time leading passer.
The Jets’ lone Super Bowl win came in 1968, which chronologically is closer to Prohibition than it is to this day. The Jets were the first AFL team to win the Super Bowl, which legitimized quality teams like the Raiders. Unfortunately, it did the same for bad franchises like the Steelers, Chiefs, Chargers, and Patriots.
Since their Super Bowl win, the Jets have done nothing of importance. They won their division only four times- 1968, 1969, 1998, and 2002. They are a team marked by failure in every way. This franchise is perhaps defined by arguably the most embarrassing play in NFL history, the Butt Fumble. In it, quarterback Mark Sanchez ran into the ass of his own lineman and fumbled the ball.
Some in-depth Butt Fumble analysis
Let’s get some in-depth analysis here. This was on Thanksgiving, on NBC, which means it was the night game after the Cowboys and the Lions had their games. Literally, every football fan in America was watching this. Mark Sanchez goes back for a handoff, only to find his running back is absent, obviously trying not to be in the camera shot for what is about to occur.
The quick-thinking Sanchez then turns toward the line of scrimmage and tries to salvage the broken play. Unfortunately, his right guard has been stood up and pushed back by what I believe is the force of nature known as Vince Wilfork, and the quarterback finds no daylight, only butt.
He falls backward and lets go of the ball in a gesture of “I give up” so common to Jets fans throughout the decades. A Patriots defender picks up the ball and returns it for a touchdown. If you know nothing else about the Jets, this play will tell you everything you need to know. There is no light at the end of the tunnel with the Jets. There is only pain, suffering, and ennui. It is butts and fumbles all the way down until you die and are buried in a Jumbo Elliott jersey three sizes too big for you.
What’s awaiting the Raiders in Week 13?
If the Jets were smart, they would already have fired Adam Gase, but they aren’t. They will not hire someone competent after this horror show of a season is over, like Eric “Sleeping With” Bienemy. Also, they may not get the chance to draft Trevor Lawrence, who has options, and hopefully good people giving him advice. They will hire some slug retread like Dan Quinn or Gus Bradley or Anthony Lynn or whatever sticks in the mud coach who should never rise above coordinator level you want to list. They will do this, not because they are stupid, but because they are the Jets. I mean, they are stupid, but they are also the Jets too.
Even after all this history of futility and the Jets’ winless record this season, it is still very possible for them to beat the Raiders. The Silver and Black does not perform particularly well on the East Coast. However, this Jets team is a special kind of bad, the kind that comes along only every so often. A 2006 Lions or 2017 Browns kind of bad, where they are not only awful but are also not really trying.
Adam Gase is not just incompetent but is also a jerk, and frankly, I don’t blame any of the Jets players for not giving 110% for the team right now. The Bills used to be awful too, but they’ve shown if you get a good coach and a good quarterback, you can turn it around. The Jets have neither of those things. By this time next year, maybe they have both, but this week they’re primed for another embarrassing beatdown.
Raiders win, 31-13.
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Top Photo: Seth Wenig/Associated Press