RaiderDamus' Friday Foretelling: Raiders vs. Titans

Greetings, Raider fans! It is I, Raiderdamus, the thankfullest man alive. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, as it will be done before this article is posted. I trust you all will be reading it after you have woken up from your tryptophan comas and the dull march-unto-death monotony of yet another Thanksgiving Day slate involving the Lions and Cowboys. I come to you today exasperated by the feckless play of our beloved Raiders, especially that of Amari Cooper, whom I blame exclusively for last week's loss to the Lions. He dropped the ball more often than Times Square. He seriously needs to get his act together, or he'll be flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong.

Anyway, as is common practice here, I have consulted the Great Beyond as to the results of this Sunday's game against the Titans. This game holds special meaning to me, as it was a game against the Titans back a few years ago which I predicted so accurately that I was first given the title of Raiderdamus, and I have been regaling you all with my wit and wisdom ever since. I don't think very many of you were on this site back then in the Before Time. I am glad you are all here with me now, as well as you, Random Titans Fan who has found your way here probably through Twitter. Buckle up. The Great Beyond spake, saying:

"Let's forget that last game happened. The less spoken of it, the better. Who you got this week? The Titans? I tell you what, being one of the first black men to coach a high school football team in Virginia during a time of great social upheaval was no easy task. Herman Boone showed great character as well as the proclivity to be a total asshole when the situation called for it- both marks of a great leader. To go through a full season undefeated with so many great programs in the area, especially losing your team captain to a car crash, shows great perseverance in the face of adversity.

Wait, what do you mean 'not those Titans'? Are you sure? I'd rather remember those other Titans.

The Titans were the children of Uranus and Gaea, including the well-known Atlas, Prometheus and Kronos, pictured here eating his own children.

Wait, not those Titans? The Tennessee Titans? Really? Alright then.

The Titans are the former Houston Oilers, who were best known for being a football team in Texas that nobody cared about because they were not the Dallas Cowboys. If you wanted to be contrarian in Texas, you didn't become an Oilers fan, you became a Redskins fan. This would ensure that everyone would hate you, but they would have a definite reason why. Nobody really hated Oilers fans, they were just kind of there. Sort of like New York- Jets and Giants fans both hate the Patriots, but Bills fans are just kind of there. The Oilers were mostly harmless, until Earl Campbell decided you were between himself and wherever he wanted to go.

The Oilers are best known for wasting the careers of Earl Campbell and Warren Moon, who unlike Campbell actually had his shot and blew it. In the 1993 AFC Wild Card game, Warren Moon and the Oilers held a 28-3 lead at halftime over the Buffalo Bills and proceeded to choke it away in the second half, losing 41-38 in overtime. It stands today as the biggest NFL comeback of all time. The Bills would go on to be eviscerated by the Dallas Cowboys in the Super Bowl. A Houston vs. Dallas Super Bowl would have been a lot of fun, but as we will repeatedly cover here, the Oilers cannot have nice things.

A few years later, the Oilers left the thick smog and humidity of Houston in disgrace and became the Flaming Thumbtacks we all know today. One of the first orders of business for the new Tennessee franchise was to get a new quarterback, and they drafted Steve McNair out of tiny Alcorn State. He had a terrific career with the team and a much less terrific career with the Ravens until his untimely death at the hands of his side hoe. Kids, don't stick your pecker in crazy.

The Titans also had the good fortune to draft Heisman Trophy winning running back Eddie George, who also had an excellent career. George had an advantage over most other running backs since he is nine feet tall, and can at any point simply fall down for a three-yard gain. He did this with great aplomb over his lengthy career. Of course, George and McNair's partnership was all for naught, as they had the severe misfortune to face the Greatest Show on Turf St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl and came up a yard short at the end. If you want to beat Kurt Warner in the Super Bowl, you had better bring Tom Brady or Ben Roethlisberger, nobody else will do. During this period, the Titans paid the Bills back in kind for that loss in 1993 with a play known as the Music City Miracle, which was complete bullshit on par with the Immaculate Reception and everyone involved should be shot and then fired by fax machine.

The Titans fell on some hard times after that, but still stubbornly held on to their coach, the bemulleted half-water rat Jeff Fisher. For Fisher, that Super Bowl loss was his shining moment in the sun, a chance to prove he was a good coach instead of just the guy you hire because you need someone who won't completely fuck up. Eventually, things got bad enough where even Jeff Fisher wasn't Jeff Fisher-y enough for the Titans.

Jeff Fisher's hair can't decide if he is a rebellious NASCAR driver or the grandpa of a douchey, villainous rich kid from an 80's movie. Hey Jaguars! You kids get off my lawn or I'll sue!

Today, Fisher can be found in his natural habitat of Missouri driving the St. Louis Rams into the ground as revenge for the 1999 Super Bowl. It's a long con, but he is fully committed.

In addition to hiring and firing some of the crappiest coaches ever to grace a professional sideline, the Titans have had some serious draft busts. They include Vince Young, Kenny Britt, Derrick Morgan (who wasn't so much awful as wasn't actually a defensive end) and one of the worst picks in recent memory, University of washington quarterback Jake Locker, who was drafted directly after his college team accomplished this feat:

Yes that's right, the Titans drafted in the first round a quarterback who won zero games in his final college season, and who would not be interested in any of Nashville's beautiful women so long as his mother moved there with him.

Locker proved to be, as any PAC-12 fan could have predicted, completely overmatched and terrible in the NFL. I swear sometimes scouts just look at workout numbers and don't watch the games at all. Locker was eventually replaced by this man:

This is Zach Mettenberger. Gentlemen, I know most of you live on the West Coast and you may not be aware, but this haircut is called "The Georgia". You can also find it on the head of currently unemployed former White Sox second baseman Gordon Beckham, who happened to attend the University of Georgia. Mettenberger also attended the University of Georgia until he was kicked out of school for "a violation of team rules", which in the SEC means nothing whatsoever and can cover transgressions ranging from sexual assault to mainlining black tar heroin to buttchugging moonshine to inappropriately touching the University of Georgia's live bulldog mascot, Uga. Mettenberger transferred to LSU, where he proceeded to bore the hell out of the home fans, but luckily for him they had all become uproariously intoxicated in the parking lot before the games and were always much too drunk to care what Mettenberger did. He was not thrown out for violating team rules at LSU, because they have no rules.

Mercifully, Mettenberger is not currently seen as the future of the Titans franchise, as they have drafted Heisman Trophy winner and all-around golden god Marcus Mariota, whom I shall say nothing ill toward as he has done nothing to deserve it. I will say, though, that the Titans deserve him even less than those boorish Cowboy fans deserved Roger Staubach. Enjoy Mariota while you have him, Titans. He shall soon tire of you.

He will tire of you because you are not located in beautiful and tropical Hawai'i, or lush and welcoming Oregon, but are instead are in Nashville, Tennessee, which is a miserable swamp teeming with hostile insects and where every building is either a clothing store or a restaurant. You need both, you see, because the citizens of Nashville get hungry on a daily basis, and when they are done eating at Big Dick's Pit BBQ and Nude Revue, they need to get clothes a size bigger than the ones they put on that morning. The cycle then repeats the following day.

Nashville is known for many things, foremost of which is that it is the Country Music capital of the world, meaning every redneck chick who thinks she has talent goes there with dreams of breaking into the music business and ends up waiting tables or hooking. The Grand Ole Opry is here, but it has little merit as it does not count amongst its membership the greatest country musician of all time, Hank Williams. This is an oversight akin to Journey not being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but I for one will not stop believing.

Nashville is also known for being the home and final resting place of former US President Andrew Jackson. Jackson is known for many impressive feats, including beating a would-be assassin half to death with his walking cane and being featured on the $20 bill. Jackson also led the American forces in the Battle of New Orleans, wherein Jackson's men in congress with the Gulf Coast pirates led by Jean Lafitte destroyed the British troops occupying Louisiana during the War of 1812. However, this battle took place in 1815 and the Treaty of Ghent had already been signed, meaning the War of 1812 had ended. Andrew Jackson had not been informed of this, and would not have given two shits regardless. Kicking British ass is a long-standing American and French tradition.

Jackson is also well-known for kicking the Seminole tribes off their land in Florida and sending them to Hell Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears. Today, the Florida State Seminoles mascot Chief Osceola is the only Seminole tribesman remaining in the state of Florida and before every Florida State home game he attempts to burn down Doak Campbell Stadium with a flaming spear as revenge for the crimes perpetrated upon his ancestors by Andrew Jackson. However, it usually goes badly for him.

As for this game, I don't really know what to make of it. The Titans are awful, but so were the Lions, and we all unfortunately saw how that went. If the Titans couldn't beat the Jaguars they shouldn't beat the Raiders, but we know these Raiders do not operate by the laws of logic or good sense. This one could go either way, but for now I say...

Titans win, 20-16."