After reading a lot of posts today (many of them defending Hue Jackson and Tom Cable), and after reading how Slowlando McClain is coming back, Ron Bartell is getting cut and Chimdi Chekwa is being promoted from practice squad, I can't help but thinking about some guys who deserved a better fate than what. they received.

Imagine for instance you are DeMarcus Van Dyke, you have been thrown into the flames in your very own rookie year, you were a member of the least disciplined defense in the history of the league, you had Stanford Routt as your role model, Chuck Bresnahan as your coach and you had a pretty bad year (as pretty much every one else on the Raider's defense). So, you come back for the training camp, you have all your hopes put on this new season and you have some bad preseason games. So you get cut before the season starts and you go Pittsburgh. Now, after watching how Ron Bartell played and now he's been cut, and how Shantae spencer played a couple of mediocre games before going IR, and how Pat Lee played, and hoy Coye Francies played, don't you think "Hey, I could have done a little better"? He was a developmental project and DA and Reggie Mac had no patience at all.

How about Rock Cartwright? He was a special teams ace, an example of work ethics, and a versatile player who could have filled in when McFadden and Goodson went down. But he was cut, he went to SF and he got cut again. He's still a free agent and somehow, with all the HUGE problems we have had on Special Teams this year, his phone was quiet.

I think of Samson Satele who played quite well at Center for us. He got kicked out, Wiz Kid who was a mosnter at left guard moved to center, Cooper Carlisle who was playing solid at RG was moved to LG and all that to bring Mike Brisiel who was signed on a 5 year $20,000,000 contract... how has he played? Well, not horrible, but how was he an improvement from Satele?

If we go further back in time, we will find a lot of horrible stories like these. Naamdi is the first name that comes to my mind, but Sterling Moore, and Ricky Brown (and god knows he would be a major improvement from McClain) loom over my head as well.

I'm not saying those players would have made the most significant impact on this year's team, and with all the bad coaching decisions probably we would still be doing pretty bad, but I think those guys busted their asses off for the silver and black and the guys we brought have not played better. Actually I think they've played awful and those guys who had to go deserved better.