Two seasons ago, the Raiders met up with the 49ers to scrimmage at practice. It made for some heated practice sessions for the two teams, complete with a lot of trash talking back and forth. With the proximity between the two teams, getting a bit of full speed practice was good for both teams.
The chances of a camp scrimmage as well as the two teams' preseason matchup ended abruptly due to fan violence following their exhibition game at Candlestick last August. The annual preseason contest has been suspended indefinitely but 49ers CEO,Jed York, said he would be in favor of resuming the scrimmage.
"We can go to Napa. They can come here. We can look at a neutral site. It doesn't have to be a preseason game. We can go to Kezar [stadium, former home of the 49ers, located in Golden Gate Park]. We can go to Youell Field in Oakland [former home of the Raiders] and have an open scrimmage, get a couple thousand fans to come in and see and make it free or do something that raises money for charity -- and not worry about having a preseason game; just scrimmage against somebody else."
Those are all some pretty interesting ideas but unfortunately, only practicing at each team's camp facility seems even possible. And getting fans involved may not be the best idea either. Any neutral location would certainly involve a fan presence from both teams and therefore involve some risk that would be similar to that which had the two teams and the NFL suspending the preseason game in the first place.
The two teams used to scrimmage just about every year but haven't done so since 2009. But, according to David Fucello of Niners Nation, the scrimmage was discontinued because the 49ers were not pleased with the results.
The Raiders have an almost entirely new front office and coaching staff, many of whom came over from the 49ers this offseason. With the new regime, some of the old issues may be easily remedied if both sides do have interest.
Raiders training camp practice resumes on Tuesday, at which point I will see if I can get the Raiders' take on the possibility of starting up the scrimmage again.
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