ARE YOU KIDDING ME! Al has everything to do with the Raiders problems. Hey, I've always been a huge supporter of Mr. Davis aka. the Godfather of football, but for the first time in my life, I agree that Al is the cause of most of the grief. First of all, he hired Art Shell, a guy who hasn't coached in like forever who then hired an o-cord. who also hasn't been in the game for a very long time. They have an out of date philosophy which we all know is also Al's philosophy and it DOES NOT WORK ANYMORE. D's are to fast these days to have your QB make 5-7 step drops everytime you pass the ball. QB's don't have time and DB's can run with most 4.3 40 WR's anyway. Oh, and don't forget that the reason Art is our coach is because every other coaching prospect wanted nothing to do with AL. Mostly because of the rate in which Al fires/trades coaches. No coach hired by AL is given the time to build a team. Just look at the facts. The last time the Raiders were a good team was when we ran a modern system with Gruden and Callahan. You all know how it took everything Al had to agree to go west coast and give up the out dated Vertical game. Now it's been back for going on 3 years and it's been killing us. Second of all, all those sacks from last night were a direct result of the system and bad play from the linemen. Wait, where did all those linemen come from? They were draft picks by Mr. Davis. Gallery, Walker, Grove, and McQuistan all were drafted by the Raiders and we all know who makes the picks. The line was horrible last year and we didn't even try to go after any good FA's to upgrade the o-line. Blame Al for that. The next thing I'll bring up is the running game. Lamont is ok but he is way overpayed, had a horrible rush average last year and also dropped to many balls last year. Why did they give up so much "cap cash" for Jordan when Al had to know that the following off season was going to be filled with availible Proven backs. Anthony Thomas, Chester Taylor, DeShaun Foster, Edgerrin James, Jamal Lewis, Michael Bennett, and Shaun Alexander were all FA's this past offseason. What about some of the good backs in this years draft like D. Williams and L. Maroney. Al just could not be patient and look towards the future and think rebuild. He had to think about winning now and reloading. So he gives a backup in Jordan all this money that he has not earned yet. To say he has earned it is crazy and I would say to make a comment like that means you know nothing about football. Then that leads to another issue. How in the HELL are we in such bad cap trouble when we haven't made the playoffs in 3 years and E.S.P.N just picked us to be the worst team in football and hold the number 1 pick in next years draft. Jordan is not the only one on our team being overpayed. You can only blame one person for that issue, AL DAVIS! Now let us talk about the "D." Al hires a LB coach from the Pats and doesn't get him LB's to run his system. It gets so bad that we now run mostly with 5 DB's and 2 LB's. Then after our "d" stinks for 2 years, Al gives the guy a contract extention. Hey, here is an Idea. How about instead of drafting DB's every single year in the first round, we draft guys in the front 7 who can actually help us win in this division. Look at who we play. Ladanian Tomilson (don't make me bring up that he rushed for 100 yards in the first half on Monday), Larry Johnson, and the Broncos who have the best run game philosophy in football. You would think with those kind of guys that we have to face that we would use our picks on run stoppers. There is no way we can win with 5 DB's always on the field. Don't blame Rob Ryan. He is just working with what he has. Who do we draft every year in round one? M. Huff, F. Washington, Nadi, P. Bucannon, D. Gibson, and S. Rout (a very low 2nd round pick). Why do we need so many first round DB's in the division we play? Speed doesn't always mean good in the modern game and Al just doesn't understand that anymore. Look at how a 4.3 40 DB like Washington got burned by Eric Parker on a simple double move on Monday. Who the hell is Eric Parker? What about how 4.3 40 Huff got beat by a TE in Gates. Again these are all guys that Al Davis drafted. Not proven FA's. Hell we even moved up in the draft and gave up guys to select Washington and Bucannon in round one. I'm not trying to say that I don't like some of those guys that we drafted like Huff and Washington, just that they don't help stop the run in a division where that is very important. Even look at our D-Line. Sapp is not a run stopper. Kelly isn't either. We are very small in the middle. Brayton was used as a Lb the last 2 years so you know he isn't a big dominant run stuffer on the line and Burgess is a smaller pass rusher as well. Are entire "d" is probably the fastest in football but we are small and are going to get killed by the RB's in our division. It's no wonder why we went 0-6 in the division last year. To say that Al Davis is not the problem means to me that you are in DENIAL. I know of this problem because I was in denial about Al for years and the first way to recovery is admittance. LOL! So, we are all pist and want to vent so there was my vent. I feel better. At least untill Sunday.