Time will tell...

So Jerry Porter is switching his number and attitude to Tim Brown's. When Porter came to the Raiders as a receiver with great potential, Tim Brown took Porter under his wing and taught Porter how to control his receiving patterns and his attitude. Make no mistake, the attitude fell apart in 2006. It is not the prerogative of a receiver to dictate to the owner, the head coach, or the receivers coach what offense will be run. In February of 2006, those who make such decisions decided on a plan. It was Jerry Porter's job to carry out his part of that plan to the best of his ability. There is little question in my mind that had Porter done his job, and Moss his, the Raiders would have had about four more wins under their belts.

Still, we are likely better off for the way things have turned out. With those four more wins, we'd still have Art Shell and a very long road in front of us. While I have great respect for Shell as a player and a coach, his greatest weakness is his lack of anticipation for how players, not familiar with him, will perceive him. If Shell had started the 2006 season earlier, and made more of an effort to sell himself and his philosophy to his players, there might have been far less communication breakdowns in Raider ranks. If Kiffin does nothing else, he has proved this a little more every day since his hiring. Claims that the prevailing problem was Al Davis' cluelessness should be completely shattered. Davis spoke directly to this exact issue the day of Kiffin's introductory press conference.

According to Tim Brown, Porter's mentor and confidant, Kiffin has told Brown that the Kiffin offense is based primarily on Jon Gruden's offense. Again shattering perceptions on how Al Davis felt about Jon Gruden and about what we think Davis prefers to see in a Raider offense. I assure you that the one primary quality of an offense for Al Davis must be that it is a winning offense. "Just win, baby!" Do whatever it takes. Still, Kiffin appears to have added his own wrinkles. Gruden felt that on every long pass, three things can happen and two of them are bad. Kiffin loves to throw in the deep shot in order to spread the defense and to keep them off balance. Because of this, Kiffin requires deep ball receivers - guys with the speed to get past the corners, the height to out jump them, the hands to pull the ball in, and the muscle to hang on to it. Outside of Doug Gabriel, Porter and Moss are really the only receivers with such credentials.

It speaks well of Lane Kiffin that (at least evident from Porter's brief statement in a press release) Porter promises a new start, and a new attitude. Porter claims to look forward to putting the past behind. Significantly, Porter has chosen Tim Brown's number for his own. Porter indicates (and Brown backs it up) that Porter's intent is to emulate Brown in team leadership and work ethic. Is Porter capable of such a conversion? Time will tell.

As for Moss? Tim Brown seems to feel that Moss' lack of production in 2006 was more a matter of ability than attitude. Brown is of the opinion, based on information he gets from players who still play against Moss, that Moss has lost a step - that his skills are declining rapidly. On this, I disagree with Brown. It would be one thing were it evident that Moss was trying but failing. What I noticed was his distinct lack of effort. He didn't fight for the ball (one of his career trademarks), and frequently didn't stretch out to make catches. Frequently he stood by while balls were being picked off by the defender right in front of him. My opinion of Moss is that once it became evident that the Raiders were not going to be competitive, Moss took the rest of the season off.

Between Moss and Porter, I prefer Porter's circumstances to Moss'. Porter was mainly not on the field, but Moss was a starter with a team (a "brotherhood of men," as Mr. Sapp once put it) relying on his efforts. While Porter may have disrespected the Raider's coach and their fans, Moss disrespected the coaches, the fans, and his teammates. He hung his team members out to dry with his lack of effort. As a player, I would be reluctant to have Moss come back on the field. As a fan, I would be reluctant to pay for a ticket to watch him. As a coach, I would be reluctant to depend on Moss to carry out my design. But according to an ESPN radio interview with Kiffin, Moss is also now on board and looks forward to starting a new season. Earlier, at the Senior Bowl, we heard that Kiffin had approached Moss and had been rebuffed. Has the situation changed? Were the rumors from the Senior Bowl ever true? Or is Kiffin simply trying to boost Moss' trade value? Judging by the words I've heard come out of Kiffin's mouth, that his players will be on board and that they will "play happy," I have to lean in the direction that Kiffin has been able to sell Moss on the new program. Are Moss' low 2006 numbers a sign of a poor attitude, or a sign of declining skills. Time will tell.

If neither Porter or Moss are now "trade bate," our draft structure appears to have evolved. If we keep Moss, we no longer have the use of him to increase draft choices or to use him to move up the ladder in any particular round. This makes the successful use of our #1 pick somewhat more critical. Trade the first pick? Pull the trigger on Jamarcus Russell, a run stuffer on the defensive line, a running back, an O-line stud? My choice would still be to pull the trigger on JRus, but I'm less certain now that the Raiders will do that. Whatever the Raiders decide to do, we can expect to see them make a number of inquiries about veteran quarterbacks. Which quarterbacks they inquire about will likely signal what they have in mind for the #1 pick. Whether they decide to draft JRus or not, I believe they will retain the #1 pick, and not trade down. But if the Raiders make serious inquiries as to the availability of David Carr, I believe that Russell will not play for the Raiders. If the Raiders make inquiries about Huard in KC, I believe that will be because they are looking for the temporary stop gap while they groom a franchise quarterback.

Andrew Walter? I don't believe that the Raiders will go into the season with him as their only choice as a starter since Tui is all but gone and Brooks has been released. I feel the Raiders only have one of two choices. Either bring in an experienced young veteran for a long term solution and give Walter the chance to compete, or to bring in JRus and an older experienced quarterback to help groom Russell the way that Tim Brown groomed Jerry Porter. Either way, I believe that Walter will be given a chance to compete, but only one chance. This coming training camp will be the most important training camp of AWal's career. And time will tell.

Note: Feel free to comment. I have changed the settings so that others, who are not registered users of Blogger, may comment. And welcome to BlandaRocked.

It's Alive?

After the 2005 season, after three seasons of being a bottom dweller in the AFC West, Al Davis attempted to reach back to the rise of a Bay Area dynasty. Believing that the brand of football Davis brought with him to Oakland in the 1960s was still viable in today's NFL, in fact still used by some, Davis rehired the last Raider coach to make it work. In the late 1980s, Davis failed in his attempt to modernize the Raider philosophy with the hiring of Mike Shanahan. He replaced him with a Raider legend, a HOF left tackle and offensive line coach.

Art Shell had been a fixture in the Raider organization for the better part of two decades. The quiet man was well known by the players and front office alike. The players understood every nuance of an Art Shell expression. They understood "the look" which forced the instant recollection of every instruction Art Shell had ever given a player, and the look was all that Art Shell needed. He and his players were one. They would always endeavor not to disappoint him, nor he, them. So Al reached backward to that former place, hoping to regain what had been lost in time.

Many of us, riders on the bus of Raider glory in years gone by, cheered with the hope that nostalgia brings. We, along with Al, failed to consider the organizational restructuring required to foundation such a commitment. While we understood that Art Shell had been out of coaching for many years, and expected a certain amount of rust, we failed to understand that "the look" was no longer possible. A quiet man, a man who motivates and teaches with an economy of words and energy, is a difficult man to get to know. When Shell was named coach in the 80s, his players knew every detail of Shell. When he returned in 2005, the strangers who occupied the Raider locker room knew only that Shell was in the Hall as a player and had been a reasonably successful coach in a time before any of them had been old enough to sit up and watch a football game. "The look" meant nothing to them, and Shell, it appears, failed to offer them more.

The Raiders of 2006 were a team with potential, and potential offers more questions than answers. Art Shell is a leader by example, charged with building the potential of a team which had never laid witness to the example. To a degree, Art Shell understood his limitations in communication. He surrounded himself with coaches who knew him, and knew what he wanted. They were, like Shell, former players and coaches from a different time, also unfamiliar to the players and, more importantly, also unfamiliar WITH the players. Ultimately, the team collapsed in a 2-14 orgy of miscommunication.

Somewhere in this confusion, it appears that Al Davis found a moment of clarity. It wasn't the vertical offense which created the most feared team of the 60s, 70s and early 80s. An effective offense isn't the cause of a wide open, gambling style. The style of a team is created by its personality. A team's personality is created by its leader. Al understood, and I now understand, that the Raiders of that earlier era were not born out of the Gilman offense, but from the mind, the tenacity, the arrogance of Al Davis. In order for that earlier team to return, it would require a brash, 30 something, Al Davis to recreate it. A moment of remarkable clarity seems to have shown Al that if he can no longer tinker like Lombardi to reclaim a team lost in time, perhaps he can tinker like Frankenstein and make a monster. The replacement for that team, born in an earlier era, can be born anew from the mind, the tenacity, the arrogance of the 30 something Davis Monster.

Davis had begun his rise on the semi-pro-like coaching staff of USC. There he studied the rising talent of college athletes throughout the country. After leaving USC, he worked and studied under Sid Gilman, innovating the most advanced vertical offense of his day. When he came to the Raiders, he utilized both. He taught the team his offense and, becoming Commissioner of the AFL, signed the best college talent in the country to insure the survival of a league. In Al Davis' moment of clarity, he understood that this would be the blue print for the return of Raider glory.

After firing Art Shell, Davis began looking for the monster's new brain, again reaching back to the past, but in an entirely new way. He searched the breeding grounds where he had been born, looking to find what had been born again. It was only natural that he would begin at USC. He started first with what he knew.

Davis began talking to the young, former Raider quarterbacks coach who had returned to USC to build championship contenders. After speaking to Sarkisian several times, testing his knowledge, his desire, his ambition, one suspects Al eventually put the big question to the young coach. "I came to a team in a similar condition to the Raiders right now. I built a team that appeared in a Super Bowl in every decade but the 90s. I built one of the most feared teams in all of professional sports. I built a team with the best record of every professional sports franchise, not just football. I was not much older than you are now. Can you do the same?" And it is, perhaps, at this point, where Sarkisian balked.

Davis had asked another question that Sarkisian did answer. "Who would you choose as an offensive coordinator?" Sarkisian identified Kiffin, also at USC, who shared a similar background with Sarkisian and Davis. Apparently there was a spark, a recognition, if you will, when Davis and Kiffin met. Their minds, their tenacity, their ambitions embraced. The Davis Monster's brain had been found, and Davis has allowed it to select it's own body, arms and legs, and in April it will acquire its heart.

Come summer, the body parts of this monster will be stitched together. We eagerly await September. Perhaps some stormy autumn night, as lightning strikes the HOT, we will collectively shout, "It's alive! It's alive!"

For the love of the game...

Back toward the beginning of the 2006 season, many were telling me that Art Shell, Tom Walsh, Al Davis, and Freddie Biletnikoff were dinosaurs, advocates of a game which no longer existed. They were right, of course, but not in the way they meant. The game that I witnessed through the rise to my maturity in the 60s, 70s, and early 80s no longer exists. The difference is not better and stronger athletes (although the technology of performance enhancing drugs has improved), nor new, brilliant, and innovative schemes regarding Xs and Os. Rather, the difference is a capitalist's wet dream - money, and lots of it.

Don't misunderstand. The money has brought good and bad things. But to me it has turned the game into something more akin to Madden Football than a strategic and violent competition between men. The earlier era had far more room for players to innovate and to improvise on the football field. It cared more for the afternoon enjoyment of the fan rather than viewing the fan only as marketing potential. The players were in it for the love of the game, not for their 15 minutes of fame or whatever jewelry they could sport to flaunt their newly found wealth. The game cared more for giving the fans their money's worth, rather than holding them up by the ankles to shake out every loose penny. I remember the 1973 playoff game between the Raiders and the Dolphins, when Stabler came to the sideline during the final, winning, two minute drive - not to talk strategy with John Madden, but to tell him, while looking into the Oakland stands, "The fans are getting their money's worth today, aren't they Coach."

It's a good thing that the players now get their financial due. Al Davis fought for this, and for good reason. The fans go to stadiums to see the players, not the uniforms. They are the conduit for the money that comes to the owners, the league, and to the broadcaster, not a mere beneficiary. The players in prior generations knew that the money made during the short span of their career would not sustain them and their families for very long unless they made wise investments, or were able to parlay the notoriety during their playing days into a novelty position in a business selling insurance or automobiles. Too many of our sports heroes wound up penniless in institutions or out living on the street.

But the current wealth has also brought with it a new kind of player. Star players have become CEOs of their own corporations, independent of any motivation to function according to the requirements of the team. From the Raider fan experience, we have the recent examples of Randy Moss and Jerry Porter. One easily senses that Moss' weekly interview program was designed to push his line of clothing and to further his personal fame rather than any thought of promoting or encouraging his teammates. One questions whether he ever thought about team at all. It appears more likely that he viewed teammates, and opposing players alike, as little more than electronic images in his private game of Madden Football. If the images didn't serve to pump up his self image and marketing ability, he felt free to delete and set up in a new Franchise mode. A 2-14 season? No problem. It never existed. Delete, start Franchise, begin again. The Players of the 60s and 70s were faced with spending their careers in a single franchise. A losing season meant redoubling your efforts or going through the heartache all over again.

Working out with the team to get in football shape? It's not a priority for Jerry Porter. Workout privately with a personal trainer to get those pretty ripped abs. So much the better background for a large gold dollar sign suspended from a thick gold rope.

It's interesting to me that Al Davis always had the great reputation of being able to work with difficult players. It is not the above mentioned types where Al had his success. The "difficult" players in the earlier years were not egotistical loners. In those more conservative years, players, like Ted Hendricks, were free spirits who hated to wear neckties. They liked a good joke and didn't want to take life too seriously. Football is, after all, a game, and games are meant to be fun. To them, there was nothing more fun than closely matched competition. In those days, rebellion was wearing white shoes. While other organizations treated football like the military preparing for war, the Raiders loved individuality so long as all that mattered on Sunday afternoon was the team and the victory. The personality of a Raider team was the melting pot of individualism directed at a single goal. The Raiders were, in short, the real "America's team."

In the current climate, coaches no longer set their Xs and Os to represent real players. They are part of the computer program. Many modern coaches question whether they should allow their quarterback to audible at the line. In earlier days, quarterbacks frequently called most of their own plays. They knew the value of team because it opened lines of communications between players who would report to the field general whether they were beating their opponent or getting beat. I remember George Blanda, the man who inspired the name of this website, making adjustments by talking to his teammates in the huddle, and drawing new receiver routs and blocking schemes in the blades of grass, like kids will do in pick up games in the neighborhood.

John Madden gave an interview last year, at about the time he was inducted in the hall, and not long after Art Shell was named the Raiders new head coach. He said that he never wanted to sound like he was stuck in the mud, so during his broadcasting career he always questioned whether players of his era could compete in the modern era. Now he views it differently and, he says, more realistically. He asks, instead, "could any of the modern players have survived in the earlier era?"

But for a few, I think not. Old school would defeat the modern era with intelligence, desire, and the flexibility to adjust on the run. Many argue that Art Shell proved that he and Davis were out of touch with today's game. On the contrary, Art Shell proved that the modern player is out of touch with the love of the game.