First Sighting

Well, it's been a long while since I have posted, and quite a bit has happened to our beloved Raiders. If you listened to te rumors you are surprsed Kiffin isn't on his way to Arkansas right now. The Raiders were .500 after 4 weeks and .200 after 11. Sitting at 3-8 after finally beating the Chiefs, the Raiders looked liked a different teams against the Broncos, whoopin' 'em up 34-20. But despite Josh McCown's best day as a Raider, and Thomas Howard's second INT of Jay Cutler in as many games, the most exciting part of the weekends festivities, next to getting the second division win in a row, was watching our future begin to unfold.

In front of a packed house, the young man with the gold plated RPG hanging off his right shoulder named JaMarcus finally got his uniform dirty. The very first play was a beautiful hard play action, naked rollout where JR put a pass in a perfect place for either; Jerry Porter to make a great catch, or the ball to go out of bounds with no pick possible. Porter made the sideline catch, one of his more routine of late, the Raders picked up 16 yards on first down, and so began the era of JaMarcus Russell. How long and prosperous an era has yet to be determined, but early returns are good.

I was most impressed by Russell's poise and presence. Both of which would be tested when he and Lamont Jordan mishandled an exchange and russell had to control the ball then scambled to the line of scrimage, and again, when from the shotgun, the snap went ary and Russell just fell on the ball. On both plays Russell did the right thing and the Raiders kept the ball, but I am sure those were the first things he worked on this week. Another nice sign was when Rusell felt pressure up the middle. He smoothly side stepped the oncoming defender, pulled the ball down and picked up a modest 4 yards on the ground. He didn't force a throw and he wasn't overwhelmed by the NFL rush, not that Denver's is the most formidable, but it's still better than anything he facesat LSU.

All in all, things are looking up in Raider nation. Kiffin has the tea playing hard despite the record, and with JaMarcus starting to see the feild, the picture is slowly coming into focus.