Raiderdamus: The following is a work of humor and satire about the Las Vegas Raiders. It may contain offensive humor and imagery and as a result it should not be read by anyone.
Greetings, Raider Nation! It is I, the man who can style and profile, the cream of the crop, the heavyweight champion of football-related humor, Raiderdamus the Great and Powerful. It is with great pleasure that I come to you today with the Raiders fresh off their second consecutive overtime road victory. Honestly, it’s bad for our collective blood pressure that these Raiders are the least predictable team in football. When we think they’re good, they suck, and when we think they suck they rattle off wins.
Raiderdamus’ Saturday Foretelling: Chargers vs. Raiders
Is Josh McDaniels a good coach? Who knows! Would a fifth grader have the sense not to call a toss sweep on fourth and inches? Almost certainly! Is it more exciting to have a head coach who treats real football with the same reckless and self-destructive abandon that a twelve-year-old treats a game of Madden? Ask me after my next heart surgery. Fourth down is just the fourth opportunity to call four verts. Life’s too short to check down.
This week, the Raiders cannot win a road overtime game because they are playing at home, but that will not stop them from trying. To this end, I’ve once again contacted the Great Beyond for his opinion regarding the upcoming Raiders vs. Chargers game, and here is the message I received:
“What a game last week. Seattle is known for its overwhelming home field advantage, but their stadium was so loud last week because it was filled with Raider fans. It must be disconcerting for fans of other, more strait-laced teams who pray after every touchdown and don’t commit personal fouls, to go to a game expecting an easy win, only to be surrounded on all sides by the most diabolical, dangerous, defiant group of hooligans since the hordes of the Great Khan conquered central Asia. To know that these people, this hidden nation, lives amongst you, and only comes out when it is convenient, it’s like in The Matrix when Agents can be anyone and appear from anywhere. Raider Nation is everywhere, and it can be anyone. Be afraid.
No jokes here from Raiderdamus…
But who you got this week? The Chargers? Seriously we just played them. I don’t even have to joke; I just have to tell the truth.
There is only one team in the history of organized professional football who finished a season with both the No. 1 offense and the No. 1 defense by yardage. That one team started the season 2-5, finished it 9-7, and missed the playoffs. That team is the 2010 San Diego Chargers. Because these Chargers forgot that special teams are important and had the worst special teams in the history of the NFL.
Blocked punts almost never happen in professional football. They’re an event always hoped for, but rarely seen, like a successful onside kick. There were 12 blocked punts across the NFL in 2010. Four of them happened to the Chargers. Two of them came at the hands of the Raiders, on consecutive possessions. Their punt coverage unit allowed over 19 yards per return. Blocked kicks, return touchdowns, you name it and it happened to the 2010 Chargers. Their special teams were so unbelievably awful that the Chargers didn’t even get to go to the playoffs and get waxed in the first round by the Patriots like they were used to.
The Days Of Dan Fouts
The Chargers are always forgetting something. In the days of Dan Fouts, they forgot to play defense. During the days of Stan Humphries, they forgot to show up to the Super Bowl in 1995, losing by a billion points to the 49ers. During the days when they had New York Jets legend LaDainian Tomlinson, they forgot how to play football in the postseason.
When they had Tyrod Taylor, they forgot how to give cortisone injections. When they moved to Los Angeles, they forgot that nobody gives two shits about them there and sharing a stadium with a more storied and popular team which has actually demonstrated the ability to win multiple Super Bowls makes the Chargers the Jets of the west coast.
Perennial AFC West Champs
The Bolts have accomplished one thing though, and that’s being Offseason AFC West Champions ten years in a row. Everyone thinks the Chargers are world beaters until Week 8 and the entire team is on injured reserve. The Chargers as a franchise are like buying a beautiful new Maserati, driving it off the showroom floor and speeding directly into the wall of a hospital. Before this all started, you were wealthy and respectable, but now you are just a fraudulent, irresponsible dumbass who has crushed the hopes of dreams of thousands of people, including women and children. How many times must we watch the Chargers plow into the side of a hospital before we learn that they will never be good?
Dean Spanos is the worst owner in sports. Chargers’ fans don’t have a lot of sense, but they do have enough sense to hate Spanos. After his extortion attempt on the City of San Diego failed, he succeeded in strong-arming the Raiders out of the Los Angeles market just so he could eat the scraps from the Rams’ table and lick Stan Kroenke’s boots. Spanos is a gormless sack of slime who will make damn sure the Chargers always look like champions at the beginning of the season and pretenders at the end of it. Like everything else from Los Angeles, the Chargers have a primped and polished appearance but are ultimately gutless and lacking substance of any kind. Just look at the USC Trojans.
Raiderdamus: Remember Bolt Man?
There was one person who loved the Chargers. His name was Bolt Man, and he dressed up like an angry lightning bolt, as his name might suggest. The Chargers left him like a dad going out for cigarettes. There is karma to be had in that abandonment. Nobody loves the Chargers. Nobody cares about them.
The moment they have a four-win season in LA, like so many they had in San Diego, all the shallow, fair-weather dickriders who follow them now will put their Angels jerseys back on and forget they ever watched football. At least the Angels knew how to never give their fans any hope. The Chargers never learned how to fail quietly.
Raiders win, 28-24.”
*Top Photo: For The Win/USA Today