Raiders Get Frye’d

By MikeBullock  |   Monday, December 28, 2009  |  Comments( 7 )

Oakland Raiders
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On December 13th, 1987 Raider quarterback, Marc Wilson threw for 339 yards in a dazzling aerial display that unfortunately put the ball in Kansas City Chief hands three times, ensuring the Los Angeles Raiders would lose that late season game and bringing the Raiders another ten loss season.

On December 27th, 2009 Charlie Frye threw for an amazing 333 yards, but also tossed three picks and with a lot of help from coaches and teammates made sure the Oakland Raiders would have ten losses again this year.

Anyone trotting out the argument of Frye playing well in previous outings needs to sit up and pay attention to reality. Such pundits most certainly spent Sunday afternoon eating crow, served up in the dawg pound. But at least Frye managed to rack up some yardage, essentially doubling JaMarcus Russell’s passing average in his two starts. Now, if either of them could grasp the concept of ball security the loss of Bruce Gradkowski might not sting so much.

Luckily for Frye, a little solace can be taken in the fact that this is a team sport and his team made a concerted effort to lose this game together. With Tony Stewart and Stanford Routt both getting ejected (Stewart on a phantom ‘roughing the ref’ incident, Routt on a more blatant unsportsmanlike conduct call for head butting a Brown), and the entire team combining for a crippling 126 yards worth of penalties it’s no wonder they lost.

However, all that didn’t combine to really shut the door on the Raiders hopes, unless you count Frye’s 333 yards. The Raiders came into this game with one of the more feared rushing attacks in the NFL, yet on four consecutive goal to go plays, with a well rested Michael Bush looking in from the outside, Oakland passed the ball, for no gain. When you know you’re facing a defensive coordinator who showed you up close and personal that he cannot devise a scheme to regularly stuff the run, then you don’t run, you should be sent packing. Maybe there’s a bed and breakfast somewhere needing a night manager…

The only real positive to come from this game bounced off the goal post support after Sebastian Janikowski nailed the fourth longest field goal in NFL history. A low, line drive kick that barely shaved the paint on the crossbar from 61 yards out gave the Raiders a glimmer of hope to end the first half. Unfortunately, the penalties and terrible play calling, combined with poor tackling and sloppy overall play doused that glimmer like a firefly under a tidal wave.

Once again, the Raiders’ win streak ended at one and done and once again, key veterans are left shaking their heads at what is going on in the locker room, on the field and under the headsets. With a playoff hungry Baltimore Ravens coming to town next week (you know, the real Cleveland Browns), expect the final week of the season to get ugly in Oaktown. Raven running back Ray Rice has racked up just shy of 400 yards on the ground in his last three games and who knows which Oakland team will show up. This is the time of year when many Raider players seem to phone it in, which was evident yesterday. Unfortunately for Raider Nation, we can expect more of the same next weekend as several key players are mentally already on vacation.
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No.1
tommyg		02:14 PM
12/28/2009
If healthy we have a good #3 Q.B. in Frye, a good # 2 guy in Gradowsky and a plump S-L-O-W learner in Jawalrus Russell. We need...
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No.2
bigsnow81		11:00 PM
12/28/2009
Well there went my hopes for a 7-9 season, thus the double digit losing seasons streak continues. With no signs of life in the...
No.3
Big Tex		11:06 PM
12/28/2009
"The Raiders came into this game with one of the more feared rushing attacks in the NFL." Oh really? Feared by who? The...
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