The Oakland Raiders appear to be on the cusp of a turnaround for their franchise. However, as much as you may want to believe they are ready to crawl from the gutter of the NFL wasteland, there remain several key variables that will make or break the 2011 Raiders — everything from possible suspensions of key players to instabilities in the coaching staff. While it appears that most of the stars are in order, let’s all remember that we’ve been fooled into believing the hype before.
One of the biggest questions facing the Raiders this year will ultimately be: Is Hue Jackson a long term answer at head coach? Because let’s face it, he has no experience whatsoever as a head coach in the league. Some guys ultimately end up being better position specific coaches than they are head coaches. Take the Chargers’ Norv Turner for example – he is an excellent offensive coordinator, but pretty well sucks as a head coach. While fans would like to see Hue Jackson be better than Norv Turner, there still exists the possibility that he just isn’t. The flip side is that anybody is going to be better than Tom Cable.
Another idea for you to mull over is if Hue Jackson proves that he is the man to lead the tribe to the Promised Land, will the Raiders be a competitive playoff team in 2011 without any playoff experience? I mean, look past Richard Seymour and you’ve got almost an entire squad with no playoff experience. In fact, I can’t think of anyone on the team (minus Seymour) who has been in the playoffs aside from the coaches. Don’t you have to go through the growing pains of the playoffs before you are a real contender? Baltimore destroyed the Chiefs last year in “Wildcard Week” (after the Raiders laid the blueprint). They say the entire atmosphere of the game changes when January rolls around. Are the Raiders man enough to deal with that yet, or have they not reached their hypothetical NFL puberty yet?
Not only that, but teams are going to take them more seriously during their regular season schedule this year because they are the self-proclaimed “Not Losers” of the NFL last year. Really, they got off to a good start going into the bye week at 5-3 in first place in their division. But following the bye week in the middle of the season, they crumpled up into a paper ball and let the Pittsburgh Steelers and Miami Dolphins play garbage can basketball with them. This year, they will have an opportunity to have a similar start, but the bye week is once again right in the middle of the season. So Hue Jackson is going to have to pull off some kind of super power to prevent the team from lulling themselves to sleep for three weeks in the middle of their schedule.
All of that said, the biggest obstacle for the young team is going to be maintaining their confidence in games outside of their own division. Last year, they were 2-8 outside of the AFC West. They were swept by the AFC South and they were absolutely atrocious against the Steelers and the Dolphins. This year they are going to have to win at least four of those six inter-conference games to be in the AFC playoff race; this year they will play the AFC East plus the Houston Texans and the Cleveland Browns. The Texans have only lost to the Raiders one time in six meetings. The New York Jets are defending two-time AFC runner-ups and the New England Patriots are always tough to beat. Luckily, for this young Raiders team, they’ll have the home field advantage in those two contests.
Perhaps the bottom line in all of this is that Raiders will most likely have to win the AFC West in order to make the playoffs in 2011. With Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, New York, and New England almost locks to make the playoffs before the season even starts, the AFC conference has already established who the big boys are going to be on a regular basis. Much like last year, the sixth postseason spot will belong to the winner of the AFC West, though it will be a higher seed than six, most likely either three or four. Hue Jackson and his coaching staff have their work cut out for them this year. The sad part is that the league isn’t making it any easier for the team to get off to a fast start with all the CBA melodrama. This season is huge for the Raiders because if the Raiders get into the playoffs this year, they are almost certain to have a home game in at least wildcard week. If that happened, Al Davis might actually get to announce to the press that they are not blacked out for once.
Wait… can they black out a playoff game?
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