Cable changes nothing, nothing changes overnight in Oakland

By Os Davis  |   Monday, October 13, 2008  |  Comments( 91 )

Oakland Raiders
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Another one in this dismal 2008 Oakland Raiders season is in the books, as is the first game of the Tom Cable era, and it seems as though the profoundly deep problems ain’t gonna disappear overnight.

Indeed, after an admirably defensive-minded first-quarter performance, the Raiders’ game appears to have devolved a half-step or so. Nothing Oakland needed against the Saints on Sunday was there, stamina was essentially nonexistent and the offensive weaponry misfired repeatedly.

Johnnie Lee Higgins and special teams needed to have a big game; that didn’t happen. The secondary needed to look alive against the league’s No. 1 yardage-amassing quarterback; instead, Drew Brees put together a string of 16 consecutive completions. JaMarcus Russell needed to throw the ball with accuracy (more on this Tuesday) and, more importantly, less often; instead, he went a pitiful 13 of 35 for basically his worst performance since Week 16 of 2007.

On the plus side? Well, Gibril Wilson started the game with two tackles and a push-out on the game’s first three plays and by the gun sounded was the sole Raider left contributing a solid effect to lead the team with 10 tackles. Cable’s specialty, the line, was ‘O’ as in ‘OK,’ giving up only two sacks; if only the right side had been able to contain the mighty Bobby McCray ...

Perhaps never more painfully obvious were the vanilla playbook these Raiders have been forced to play with all season (seriously, are these guys just running out of original calls by the second quarter?), the slack pass defense, the lack of quality receivers ... why Cable just didn’t bring the blitz on every play is beyond this observer, but even when Oakland did blitz, said attack was too easily contained.

Sorry for the litany today, Raider Nation, but Sunday No. 1 of the Cable era produced little positive to say. Unless you were Jason David.

It may be time to start thinking about the draft. How do y’all feel about Tyson Jackson or Andre Smith? Hey, right now, it may be better to contemplate a fruitful future than this barren present. Cable or no Cable, it’s time to get out the fork – these guys are done.
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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's...
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CommentsComments: 91  |  Sign Up  View all comments
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No.1
02:52 AM
10/13/2008
Paul, I cannot believe you went there blaming Kiffin when you so UN-eloquently stated: "I believe Russell threw so many arrant...
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No.2
Tommy		04:52 AM
10/13/2008
Os you really need to give the O-Line some more credit. They did a hell of a job all game except at the end when the Saints knew...
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No.3
Tommy		05:01 AM
10/13/2008
"ToMMaaY, I'm afraid I can't explain any better... It is indeed confusing, but not as confusing as figuring out the QB rating,...
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