The loyalty of the Oakland Raiders fan base has been tested and confirmed. For over six years I, and many others, have rolled out of bed with visions of the greatness and glory of the raiders dancing in my head. We wait for the return of the cannon arm gunslinger, the lock down secondary, the gazelles at wideout sprinting under 50 yard rainbows. We wait patiently for the return of what is rightfully ours, THE VERTICAL GAME.  RAIDER FOOTBALL. We've waited patiently for the return of our IDENTITY. 

    Ahhh, but for over six years I have spent chilled Sundays lamenting failure. For six years my beloved Oakland  Raiders, with a historic TRADITION  and IDENTITY matching any in the NFL, have not been able to  execute  the fundamental plays virtually every other team executes routinely.  You can't build a golden palace without laying a basic foundation. For six years we've been building our Vertical game on sand, and it falls over every Sunday.

     I LOVE our system, I want it to work. I love that many of our traditions fly in the face of  modern football, I want it to work.  The rest of the league gets so caught up following each other in one direction they leave gaps in the rear. Check out the "innovative" Wildcat. That's just old school offense taking advantage of new school defense getting a little too fancy. Raider ball can succeed, the Vertical Game can win, It can be awesome once more.

     But not like this.  We need to fix it, tweak it. Gonna take some more time. Sucks, I know. Oh well, it's been six years, I'm still here. We're going to get it, Vertical Game 2.0......

VERTICAL GAME 2.0!!!! The greatest show on sunday. We're still all about speed. we still lock you down on the outside. But we're not neglecting basics most every other team has down pat.  Raiders, Madden, Al, Oakland. We love ya, fix this shit and give us The Raiders again. 

+ 1st Down Interceptions.

I'm going to say 1st down interceptions/not knowing what a check down is. What team/coach/quarterback goes into games knowing you're passing game is FILL IN THE BLANK, repeatedly throws 1st down interceptions? It's scary. We all saw Cable put the clamp on Russell after this last one against the Chargers. Looks like this problem is almost entirely the fault of 1. Russell's sloth in the pocket and poor quick read ability. 2. poor protection. 3. Not enough check down/crossing routes. 4. Cable not controlling the 1st down interception problem sooner. As a coach, it just can't happen. If Russell can't control himself, you have to. And I'm cool with that. I'll roll with J Russell. He's still a kid. He's a country kid in over his head right now. The coaches are paid to raise his obviously lacking situational awareness, and not allow his known lack of awareness to so drastically effect our game plan and chance of success.  Russell throws a deep pass for an interception, not extraordinary. Russell throws deep interception on 1st down??? Russell fumbles on YOUR 4 YARD LINE, because you thought you'd take the other team off guard???? Ugh, just stop with the 1st down turn overs. Give us 1 damn down to cheer, please. One down a drive, not too much to ask.

+ZONE COVERAGE/BLITZES  -

   Seriously.... you just have to. We need to blitz more, we need to zone more. We even need to, get this, do them both at the same time. Funny thing about leading the league in various stats. It's good if you're good, bad if you're bad. We blitz less and play man more than any team. What ever happened to "the Quarterback must go down, and he must go down hard."   You can't win a Madden game without mixing it up, let alone an NFL game. What's wrong? we'd need a pro bowl player at most every position for it to truly click. Game after game, the coaches say "well it was basically every man had a gap on that play, we just need to make the tackle there." What that means is the defense is so predictable and over burdened, the other teams offense can miss direct players all over the field and wait for the inevitable breakdowns. MIX IT UP.  I love targeting our secondary as a strength, let's man up. But damn, mix it up. And while we're at it, when we man up, stick Nnam on the god damn threat!!!! That Chargers game was ridiculous! 6'5" V Jack lines up on man coverage, over and over, Nnam is mere feet away, but uselessly shutting down a non factor. C'mon, he's the best, I'm tired of watching the other teams best guys soar over other CB's.

+LINEMEN, LINEMEN, LINEMEN

  We need a line, all teams do, you need to build it, year after year, all the time. West Coast, Vertical Game, Single Wing, doesn't matter. I like Gallery, EVERY TIME  we went to the Super Bowl with a bad ass O line , we need an O line. We need drafts and free agents, every year, let's do it. Focus. Can't have any recognizable system without a bad ass line.

+HEIGHT AND SPEED 

 You want to real throw deep, you need an abundance of speed and height. Did you see that the Chargers just waived Chris Chambers. Their receivers now average 6'4"!!!!! We need that. Chaz has looked raw but good. Late round pick. We need more. We need some more beef, more effective big sets, and we need height. Stretch the feild baby. Duh Vuhtical Game Baby!!!!!!!! 

Vertical Game 2.0. Call me crazy, I think it's coming..... you?