Westside's Treasure Map
The Statue of Misery...
A Corollary:
In every great historical empire there are the relics and ruins of archeological evidence for the world to see as testimony of the once-great civilizations, their zenith, and their sudden and sad demise. To this day, millions of spectators are still drawn to walk among the crumbling temples and the magnificent marble statues that are the remains of the great pyramids of Egypt, the vestiges of the Coliseum and Parthenon from the Greco/Roman empires, and the artifacts of the Acropolis on the hills above Athens.
Fast forward to the more modern and post-modern times, and there you see the remaining evidence of the British Empire upon which the sun once never set. Yet today Great Britain is no longer great; it is barely even British. And following in the footsteps as one of the descendants of this declining Great Lion is the Young Lion, the United States of America. Although the symbolic Statue of Liberty still proudly stands in the historic company of the other such wonders of the world, the USA is too is also in serious decline, in real time. For example, see Detroit as the bulldozers prepare to knock down entire sections of this once rich and proud city as it serves as evidence of the USA’s descent backward to the pre-industrial revolutionary era.
Perhaps not as important on the scale of history’s great ruins, but on the scale of up-close-and-personal is just as sad, is the present symbol of the misery of the Raider Nation. This relic and ruin of the once great Raider Nation is our own Statue of Misery. To many of us, this statue has come to embody and represent every empty seat in the coliseum that today cries out in disgust at the endless long list of wasted Raider draft picks and the countless hundreds of millions of dollars in wasted free agent signings. This Statue of Misery illustrates and sums up what Jesus meant when he said that you can’t put new wine into old wineskins. As He tried to explain, the new wine will bust the old containers, which will then leave nothing of value to be utilized.
The billboards screamed it on Hwy 880 and said the same, but try to explain this to the Manager of the General Partner in Alameda, California as he tries to still use the old formulas of the 1960’s and 1970’s in this post-modern era. What the last seven years and the worst historical losing streak in NFL history has proven is that no amount of money, no hiring’s of free agents and no numbers of top picks will work in a formula-for-wining from an era that has already been eulogized. Nor is the Oakland Raiders organization hearing the collective cry from the Raider Nation to get their pants off the ground.
Unfortunately, this misery will continue until Al Davis steps aside, not as Manager of the General Partners no, but as the Manager of Football Operations and that is enough. It will continue until he hires someone to become the Manager of Football Operations, perhaps Tim Brown as a possibility, who saw this statue of misery for what it was out of college. Sorry, Mr. Davis, but the Statue of Misery is testimony against your decision-making ability in player personnel that has been lost since the Jon Gruden trade. No other team management has blown more high picks and more money in this time frame than has yours, Mr. Davis---ever. Many coaches have been fired, but your finger prints have been all over that, shot caller.
LOL:
All of this having been said, it is my privilege here and now to unveil to you and to the world the Raider Nation’s Statue of Misery. It is a 6 foot 7 mesomorph trying to play under center, a play calling parrot trapped in an offensive linemen’s body--not the first to be of a body type to play out of position, certainly, but those other athletes have worked very hard to successfully tailor their bodies to be effective in this mismatch, of body type to position. Something our Statue of Misery has not done (unless Las Vegas casinos are the new football training ground.) Ours is the worst QB in Raider history, one who makes Todd Marajunavich look good and Marc Wilson excellent. It has the lowest passer rating of any QB in the NFL. Paul Hackett, one of the best quarterback coaches in the business, washed his hands calling it a lost cause in substance. Tim Brown has came to the same conclusion.
It was the Tennessee Titans who first used the term "statue" to describe this QB as one who just stays in the same spot resulting in sack after sack, a statue that does not step up in the pocket and that throws off his back foot, one that does not know his progression of reads, or how to check down and read coverage’s. One that does not know how to audible or that even knows the playbook for that matter, one that does not have the leadership or the many intangibles of being a leader and quarterback at this level. Poor foot work and overall conditioning with an inability to look off his receivers and do anything but telegraph to the secondary makes this the worst Raider quarterback I have ever seen, and I have seen them all play live, save Tom Flores.
Ladies and gentlemen, a drum roll, please, as I draw back the curtain on the Raider Nations Statue of Misery. (Spotlights shine back and forth as the lights dim on this world premier and come to rest on a statue bust. Yes, a statue bust.) This Statue of Misery is a statue bust with every pun intended. Let me describe it in a little more detail: this statue has a Mohawk and wears two fricken earrings. (The F$*? is this? I don’t know, but I will tell what it is not and that is a Quarterback.) Sorry Monte Poole , all of your spin, wishing and exaggerated adjectives can’t cover your biased opinions for the dude you want here, for whatever reasons. In the NFL you have to back your smack, talk is not good enough and it is our turn now to talk smack in the off season.
I am sorry, Raider Nation, but who is going to take this team seriously unless Al Davis does something about this position of Quarterback? Until and unless he does, this Statue of Misery is destined to join the ranks of the world’s other long-gone relics and it will take the once-great Raider Nation with it into the hall of shame.
Where To Now RN:
Look “RN,” this is where we are, exactly where the San Diego Chargers were at the beginning of this last decade. They too drafted a bust in Ryan Leaf, they cut their losses and drafted the World Champion Drew Brees and Philip Rivers. Two excellent quarterbacks to a very bad team at the time, but not for long. The Chargers did not stay that way because they maintained their objective reason, something Al Davis must now prove that he still has any of this left, within himself. The Chargers went on to dominate the greater portion of this same decade and the AFC West to the present; as for Drew Brees, on to Super Bowl greatness and glory. The Raiders need to do the same thing and draft a quarterback in the first round. If our own bust can with stand the competition of another first round pick at quarterback, than Al Davis has some return on investment that he has not received as of yet. This will give the RN some hope and sell some tickets at a time of all time low morale and attendance. If this is not done, then there is simply no realistic reasonable expectation of hope in the RN to turn this ship wreck around into the warm waters of even a .500 season. Mr. Davis made comparisons during the midseason about Russell to other quarterbacks of NFL history that had a slow start and then turned it around, well; those were all disproven by the end of this same season. Mr. Davis is now in danger of watching this disaster alone in the coliseum, because no one believes those correlations that he made but himself. Mr. Davis has to ask himself if he wants to tie his legacy to that player, with those fundamentals and that work ethic. Or simply bring on some insurance policies in continued high picks at quarterback, so like the Chargers we finally get it right. So that we may end this miserablely painful, languishing longest losing streak in NFL history.
Raider On Nation
Westside
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