RaiderDamus' Friday Foretelling: Raiders vs. Ravens

Greetings, Raider fans! It is I, RaiderDamus, the man who walked to school in the snow uphill both ways, the man who didn't grow up with all these newfangled doohickeys and thingamajigs, and the man who knew how to show some goddamn respect to his elders when he was young. I come to you today with a deep wound in my heart from witnessing the Raiders' epic dismantling at the hands of the Bengals, and frankly I am loathe to even think about the Raiders, much less bother a dangerous spiritual being about their fate. But, that's what I do here so away we go.

"You came back? After that display on Sunday I'm not sure you ever would. Wow, that was bad. You guys lost both safeties and a quarterback, although he's not quite dead and is possibly getting better. I guess Hue Jackson didn't succeed in turning Derek Carr into a newt, which I can assure you was part of the overall game plan.

The Raiders are moving on and so shall we. Who's up next? The Ravens? You have got to be kidding me. Why I remember not fifteen years ago, the Ravens were the only thing that stood between the Raiders and a 65-3 shellacking of the New York Giants, and then noted fatass and general lummox Tony Siragusa decided to swan-dive onto the poor old body of the fifth-greatest Raiders quarterback of all time, Rich Gannon. That was that and the Ravens went on to destroy the Giants in the Super Bowl.

The Ravens are a fascinating franchise for several reasons. Firstly, they are the bastard Cleveland Browns. Neither you nor I nor anyone can fault a team for no longer wanting to be in Ohio, and pro franchises have it over colleges for the simple reason that they can pick up and move whenever they damn well please. Art Modell did just this when he took the very successful 1996 Cleveland Browns and moved them to Baltimore, which had not had an NFL team since 1983 because the citizens of Baltimore were too busy doing drugs and shooting each other to deserve one.

I will say this for Modell- while the man was a scumbag, at least he was an up-front scumbag, and didn't move the team in the middle of the night to another shitty Midwestern city like Robert Irsay did with the Colts thirteen years earlier. Modell had a press conference at Camden Yards and basically said "Screw you Cleveland, we are moving to Baltimore next year. Enjoy never winning anything ever." This was especially painful for Cleveland because in 1995 the Cleveland Indians lost in the World Series to the Atlanta Braves, giving Greg Maddux and his Magically Expanding Strike Zone their only World Series victory. The Indians had one job, and they failed because Cleveland. Modell was right to do what he did.

Here's a quick look at the mid-90's staff of the Cleveland Browns:

Bill Belichick (current Patriots head coach, noted cheating bastard)

Ozzie Newsome (Ravens executive)

Thomas Dimitroff (GM of Atlanta Falcons)

Eric Mangini (former Jets head coach, currently on staff with Niners)

Jim Schwartz (former Lions head coach)

Nick Saban (current Alabama head coach, in Top 5 greatest college coaches all time)

Kirk Ferentz (current Iowa Hawkeyes head coach, gets an erection when his team punts)

Scott Pioli (current Chefs executive)

Mike Tannenbaum (former Jets GM)

Michael Lombardi (current Browns executive)

Now, what team wouldn't be able to win with a coaching staff like that? The Cleveland Browns, that's who. So Modell made the prettiest hoagie he could out of this smorgasbord of turd sandwich ingredients, and packed up for Bsltimore.

One of the first things the Ravens did upon occupying Baltimore was draft noted thug and murderer Ray Lewis. The middle linebacker for the next fifteen seasons, he had his share of scrapes with good judgement but always maintained that he did not kill Mufasa, King of Pride Rock.

Bu his buddies did and he helped cover it up. As we all know, the Miami Hurricanes are as close to human hyenas as there ever will be and they have little respect for the boundaries the smarter and more stable animals of the Pridelands have set up for them. It's all about Da 'U', which means "U don't tell the cops jack shit and U won't go to prison". Everything was fine for Nevin Shapiro until somebody talked to the cops.

The Ravens also drafted Jamal Lewis, who in 2005 spent four months in jail on federal drug charges. I don't understand why, because selling drugs in Baltimore is like selling rain to the ocean.

But the Ravens continued to not learn their lesson and drafted Ray Rice in 2008. He was a model citizen until in 2014 he punched his girlfriend in the face in an elevator. I won't show you a picture of that, you've already seen it. What I will post a picture of is the support this woman-beater got from the ladies of Baltimore:

The female population of Baltimore, it seems, is firmly in the "Chris Brown did nothing wrong" camp and continues to pine for Ray Rice to this day even though they have a perfectly good running back in Justin Forsett, who went to Cal, which is a fine institution unlike the hive of scum and villainy that is Rice's alma mater, Rutgers, which has a long history of sucking at everything and being located in New Jersey.

So while we can laugh at Baltimore for throwing away their moral compass in exchange for a couple Super Bowls, we can thank them for these things- Firstly, making sure Cleveland never wins anything. Secondly, not letting the Niners win their sixth Super Bowl because they would just get too annoying. Thirdly, whenever anyone gives you trouble about being a Raiders fan with all the roughness that entails, show them a picture of a woman wearing a Ray Rice jersey after September 2014. At least there's someone we can feel better than.

As for the game on Sunday, I won't believe the Raiders can win a game until they show me they can, especially not against a pretty good team like the Ravens. I don't know if the Ravens will make the playoffs this season, but they could. They also COULD have beaten the Broncos last week, but they failed at that too. The stink of New Jersey probably wafted down onto them. Hopefully the Raiders won't look so much like a tire fire, but we shall see. In any case, I don't see them winning this week. I just want to see improvements. With all the injuries and Ray Ray Armstrong's continuing existence, that may be a tall order.

Ravens win, 30-9.