For those of you who follow my Ballers & Busters series, you know what it is about. For those of you who don’t know, it is my breakdown of the performances of Raiders players in each game of the preseason and regular season.
Well, I have finally put together a comprehensive index of every Ballers & Busters for every game. I started the series in the 2008 preseason. Now, while you may be thinking “why can’t I get this info in a box score?” There is a lot that separates it from your run of the mill box score or game breakdown.
First of all, it is all about the Raider player performances in the scheme of the game. There is no focus on the other teams except for how the Raider players performed against them.
Second of all, there are a lot of things that don’t make the box score. There are no stat lines for integral parts of the game– like blocking for instance. Also, while a box score always gives the interception to the quarterback, it is often times not his fault. Most box scores do not include things like sacks given up, catches given up, or dropped passes.
Third of all, the mistakes or good plays by a player are weighed by their impact on the win or loss. For instance, a late touchdown or string of completions don’t mean much if the Raiders were down by three or four touchdowns.
If you look at the numbers, often times the player looks like they had a great game but if you watched the game, it tells a different story. Ballers & Busters tells that story and more importantly, it tells it from the Raider perspective. Which Raider players were part of the solution and which ones were part of the problem. With every attempt to focus solely on the game at hand without any preconceived notions of them from prior play.
So for anyone that would get use out of this index, you can find it in the Archives drop down menu on the header tab bar. Just click on “Ballers & Busters” (naturally). Once on the page you will see every game from every week along with the opponent and score. Just click on the game and you can see the Ballers & Busters game breakdown.
You can CLICK HERE to see the page.
And keep an eye out this offseason as I will give the Raiders’ three Super Bowl wins the Ballers and Busters treatment. Then I will be back at it starting with the first preseason game against the Cowboys.
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