It's funny, my dad is SO into football, yet so out of touch in some ways. The other day I told him we could calculate our schedule next year very easily except for the two games that depend on how the divisions shake out, and he didn't believe me. He's firmly in the camp of 'the league is out to get the Raiders any way they can', and believes that our schedule each year proves that. So ... I took an hour yesterday to figure out our schedule, just to show him that he's wrong, and I thought I'd share it with my Nation brethren. To that end, here's the Raiders schedule next year:

BELATED ADDENDUM: The Home/Away are my 'best guesses', operating under the assumption that the game will be in the opposite stadium as last time (2008 for NFC South, 2009 for AFC North), but this isn't guaranteed correct.

Steelers (Home)

Ravens (Away)

Bengals (Away)

Browns (Home)

Saints (Home)

Falcons (Away)

Buccaneers (Home)

Panthers (Away)

Texans or Titans (Home) (likely one of the two, but really it’s whichever AFC South team finishes same place in their division as us)

Patriots or Jets (Away) (likely one of the two, but really it’s whichever AFC East team finishes same place in their division as us)

And of course:

Chargers x 2

Broncos x 2

Chiefs x 2

It's not looking like any manner of a picnic, with only the Browns and Bucs at home looking ATM like they should be reliably chalkable into the W column. We will have 5 trips to the East Coast (plus the KC game + Texans/Titans), probably all morning games although maybe we'll get lucky and they put the Ravens/Raiders and/or Pats(or Jets)/Raiders on prime-time as potential marquee matchups.