Oakland Raiders are like a scrimmage

Recent Rome Take

Don’t be surprised if the New York Giants look especially sharp against New Orleans this weekend. After all, they are benefitting from an extra week of practice. Sure, the schedule says they played the Raiders last Sunday, but Giants’ linebacker Antonio Pierce says it was nothing more than a glorified walk-through: “I don’t like knocking teams, but right now they’re struggling. We’re playing the game the other day and honestly, it felt like a scrimmage, like a practice. It felt like we were going against our offense as far as tempo.” First of all, beginning a statement with, “I don’t like knocking teams, but …” is like starting one with “no disrespect intended, but…” someone is about to be disrespected. And, an NFL team is about to be knocked! And the Raiders just were.

And he’s right! Raider week has become a bye week. That game had all the familiar signs of a practice or a scrimmage. The Giants’ number one’s got their reps in, then beat it out of there and watched from the sideline. They played to a thud instead of live tackling. All that was missing was JaMarcus Russell rocking a red jersey and simulating the Q.B. of the upcoming opponent!

The Raiders front 7 may as well have been holding blocking pads for the Giants O-line. Or better yet this Sunday, raider coach Tom Cable (if he’s free on his recognizance) should just line up a blocking sled on the line of scrimmage and make the Eagle’s O-line drive that off the ball. And then he can put the “Blaster” at the linebacker level! And then some tires to run through back in the secondary.

Trust me, any of those obstacles would have provided more resistance than anyone in the silver and black did against the Giants Sunday.

Look, I really don’t like knocking teams, but if opponents are accusing the Raiders of being nothing more than a scout team in Week 5, imagine how awesome the next three months are going to be!!! It’s going to the point where the Raider game is my most important game every Sunday. I can’t wait for the flex schedule to kick in, so we can watch their scrimmages on Monday night.