Future Feelings

Greetings Friends and Fellow Followers: I hope your Thanksgiving found you as well and left you as content as mine. I bring the good word to you slightly delayed due largely to the inability to type around my turkey and pie filled belly. The good news for all of us is that in the vocation of seeing there are no holidays. I found this out when my phone rang with no number or message appearing on my cell phone screen.

"Hello?"

"Hang on, we're sweeping for bugs." The voice sounded hurried, but I could tell it was The Great One.

"Bugs? Huh?"

"Yeah bugs, they're trying to beat me to it. Okay, okay the satellite line is clear. Now write the future down as I have seen it and as I now tell to you...."

He finished what follows next amongst a carnage of sound and the line went dead.

First of all I'd like to wish you and everyone who reads this a happy Thanksgiving. Unfortunately the football games this year are absolute garbage. The Patriots will rout the Lions, the Saints will demolish the Cowboys, and the Jets will steamroll the Bengals. RaiderDamus predicts each of those games has a margin of victory of at least 20 points.

But, on to the Raiders! I know everybody's boo-hooing about the Steeler game but, the Steelers are a serious Super Bowl contender and were coming off an embarrassing home loss. I told you all it was going to be ugly, and as usual I was right. But I also said it means nothing as far as the rest of the year for the Raiders. We are facing a broken, beaten, battered and bruised Dolphin squad and we are going to bash them into browbeaten buffoons.

Brandon Marshall will probably not play, but that's okay because Nnamdi probably won't either. That's a wash, but the Raiders need to cover Davone Bess. Wait, what's that, their QB is Tyler Thigpen? Never mind. The Dolphins were recently reduced to trying out our old friend JaCarcass Russell, so their QB situation is as dire as it gets. It would not surprise me if the Raiders knocked Thigpen out of the game, and then who's next on the depth chart? Patrick Ramsey, you say? Ha, I respond. Fuff fuff. I dismiss the very notion.

The Raiders could not run the ball last week, but I foresaw that. There's a reason teams run 71% of the time against the Steelers. NOBODY runs on the Steelers. We tried, and tried again, and failed. Then we tried some more, and failed. Then we tried play action, and were sacked. Then we punted, and it was run back for a TD which was nullified because the Steelers had been cheating, as evidenced by a Steelers play illegally blocking a Raiders player in his back. That is against the rules, and yet it happens on EVERY KICK RETURN EVER. Explain that one, Mr. Smartypants website guy.

This week, we will run the ball. It will succeed. We will pass the ball. It too will succeed. We will punt at least once, but they will not have any TD returns. They will, however, be called for an illegal block in the back because EVERY TEAM DOES IT EVEN THOUGH IT IS ILLEGAL AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN. I cannot stress that enough. Ricky Williams and Ronnie Brown will run, and succeed doing so, but their terrible offensive coordinator Dan "Mr. Perfect" Henning will not let them do so enough times to win, by virtue of his calling pass plays rather than rushing plays. This will mean that Tyler Thigpen will be forced to try to succeed, and as I stated above, fuff fuff. I dismiss the very notion.

Bottom line is, even though Miami has a good defense, they fucking suck. Raiders win, 34-16.

Damus Jr. called alone from "Oracle Pleasure" wondering where everybody was and to give me his depressing prediction while trying to once again invoke the lords of reverse mojo and let me tell you, once you consciously start to play that game, it's impossible to know up from down.

With Cambell as our starter, our chances of winning this Sunday will decrease by up to 3% every other time he drops back to pass. Especially since their pass rush appears to be formidable. Thankfully, the Raiders will look to reestablish the run to put the game out of Jason's hands.

Miami's as good on the road as we are at home, so the homefield advantage won't mean much if we can't sustain drives and convert on 3rd downs better. If Campbell has another sluggish start, which is all but certain at this point, Bruce will be able to keep us in the game if the score isn't too out of hand and Cable's bawl sack reemerges from the Great Beyond.

If Cable decides to stick with a slow and sluggish Campbell until well into the 3rd quarter again, it could have disastrous results, and will translate to a more porous defense from having to be on the field too long. If he has a rare good game (and can provide a good complement to the run game) or Bruce provides that spark, we can pull it out in a thriller as our defense feasts on Thigpen to the tune of 3 sacks a FF or INT.


But since I doubt Campbell can give up the ways of the Jigglypuff (though he's not nearly as feisty), I say we lose 24-17 in a soul crusher that could crush our team AND save our season all in the same breathe. (This is all said while my reverse mojo comes back from a 2 week vacation)