Raiderdamus’ Friday Foretelling: Raiders vs. Washington

Greetings, Raider fans! It is I, the truth, the answer, the big cactus, the big Aristotle, and the World’s Most Dangerous Hermit, Raiderdamus the Great and Powerful. I come to you today fresh off yet another totally unsurprising correct prediction of a Raiders victory over the worst team in professional sports, the New York Jets.

But this week, we are on to a different opponent, and one that truly deserves all the barbs and witticisms that are about to come its way, the Washington Indigenous Persons. Before you get all bent out of shape that I don’t use the team’s actual name, please understand this:

It’s a long-running joke here at Silver and Black Pride that we do not say the word that starts with Red and rhymes with “Dead shark fins”. It’s much funnier to come up with alternative names for the team. As the Raiders beat the Native Peoples in the Super Bowl some time ago, we can call them whatever we want, because they are our bitches.

With that out of the way, I can finally reveal what was communicated to me from the star of this show, the mighty and prescient Great Beyond.

“You’re back! It seems you finally have a team to crow about. The Raiders are on a roll and the rest of the division seems in good shape too. Except the Chargers. Never trust a Young Hoe, I say. Wait until they grow up a little.

So who do you have this week? Washington? Ahh, I think you’re going to like this.

The first thing that anyone needs to understand when they consider the history of Washington’s football team is that the National Football League began as a highly regional association of teams centered exclusively in the Northeast and Midwest. For years, there was no team further west than the Chicago Bears, and there were no teams south of the Mason-Dixon Line. If there are any Cowboys fans reading this, that’s the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland.

George Preston Marshall, original owner of the team and one of the most despicable human beings to ever walk the face of God’s green earth, founded the team in Boston and called them the Boston Braves. They shared Fenway Park with the Red Sox in those days, before Marshall decided Boston wasn’t supportive enough of football and moved the team to the nation’s capital in 1937 and changed their name.

In doing so, the Indigenous Persons became the first team to play its home games south of the Pennsylvania border, and Marshall marketed the Persons as the “South’s football team.” In keeping with what he felt were Southern values, he refused to integrate his team, and the Persons did not have a single black player until Marshall’s failing health caused him to relinquish control of the team in 1962.

1962, for fuck’s sake. Let’s put this in perspective! Fritz Pollard played in the Rose Bowl for Brown University in 1916 alongside future Alabama and Duke head coach Wallace Wade. Jackie Robinson integrated baseball in 1947. As a matter of fact, the NFL had been integrated from the very beginning, because nobody cared enough about pro football at its inception to keep black players out.

However, in 1933, suddenly the NFL decided to ban blacks from playing. It is strongly suspected that Marshall was at the heart of this decision, although none of the prominent owners at the time- including Tim Mara, George Halas and Art Rooney would ever own up to why the decision had been made. Marshall later said that he thought, given the social climate at the time, black players would be targeted for injury by white players and their safety was in question. Considering what Enos Slaughter did to Jackie Robinson nearly 20 years later and all the other tribulations Robinson went through, Marshall may not have been totally wrong about that, but that doesn’t make him any less of a shithead. All other teams besides the Persons gradually integrated, and the emergence of Jim Brown as the best player in football buried any further doubt that black players belonged in the professional ranks.

Under pressure from fans and media, Marshall drafted black Syracuse running back Ernie Davis #1 overall in 1962. Davis, however, said that he would “never play for that son of a bitch” and Washington traded Davis to the Browns for Bobby Mitchell, who became officially the Persons’ first black player. Davis tragically died of leukemia two years later, presumably due to his brief exposure to the Persons.

Marshall’s chief impetus for integrating the team in the end was pressure from then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. The Persons then named their stadium after him after his assassination, to remind everyone he was dead.

The lack of black players contributed to a severe talent disparity between the Native Peoples and the rest of the NFL in those days and the Redskins had few winning seasons to speak of. When the Dallas Cowboys were founded in 1960, the Potomacs were no longer the only team in the “South”, and the team’s attitude toward race and integration is why so many Cowboys fans exist in what would normally be Potomacs country to this very day.

Marshall was the polar opposite of Al Davis, who always had an integrated team, coaching staff and front office and was consistently the most socially progressive NFL owner.

In an ironic twist, the First Nations employed the very first black quarterback to win the Super Bowl, defeating the Denver Broncos in 1987. He deprived noted horse-person John Elway of a Super Bowl title in the process, and for that, we thank him. Good job, Doug Williams!

Of course, Marshall is not the only utter dickbag to own the Washington franchise. Current owner and noted sleazeball Dan Snyder currently infects the nation’s capital with his particular brand of elitism. Snyder’s penchant for price-gouging while spending the fans’ money on overpriced free agents and creating the worst stadium experience imaginable is truly remarkable. Here are a few views of Fedex Field for your consideration:

Look at those poor schmucks sitting behind that pillar, paying hundreds of dollars for the privilege of not watching football. The Indigenous Persons haven’t treated anybody this badly since George Armstrong Custer in 1876. Fedex Field is an apropos name for Washington, because much like Fedex, the team does not deliver on Sundays, but the team still mails it in each year. Just like actual Native Peoples, the team has a history of being soundly defeated at home.

Among the many awful contracts handed out by Snyder was the Albert Haynesworth deal. Snyder signed Haynesworth to a $100M deal in 2009. Here’s a look at what Haynesworth provided the Persons:

Snyder also gave Donovan McNabb a boatload of money at the very end of his career to do nothing whatsoever. Here’s what McNabb thinks of Snyder’s decision-making skills:

Former Washington coach Joe Gibbs, who is an absolute peach of a man that I have no ill word about, had plenty of success under former owner Jack Kent Cooke. He had no such success under Snyder. Gibbs’ record without Snyder was a stellar 140-65. With Snyder, his record was 31-36. In fact, no head coach has ever had a winning record for Snyder except one: Norv Turner, whom Snyder fired midseason in 2000 despite the fact that Washington was a winning team at the time.

One of Snyder’s worst decisions was the head coaching tenure of Jim Zorn, who did this, whether out of imcompetence or out of spite:

This play is known as the Wrath of Zorn play, and it certainly is that, because my eyeballs hurt to watch it.

Andrew Jackson did more good for the Native Peoples than Dan Snyder has. The fans leave Fedex Field each week in a trail of tears.

One of the few good decisions made by the Indigenous Persons in the Snyder Era was the drafting of former Miami star safety Sean Taylor in 2004. Of course, the Persons could not hold on to someone of his quality for long, and he was lost to the world at the age of 24. Pro Football Focus notes that Taylor is the only safety in history to have a rating of 0 against the pistol:

As today is the first day of fall, we’re well into the days when it will be cold on the Eastern seaboard. The Raiders should bring some blankets for the Native Peoples and their fans.

As racist and awful as the history of the Washington franchise is, the most offensive thing about them is the play of the team itself. It’s known that Indigenous Persons are prone to alcoholism, but these days it’s inflicted by watching the team play football. Look what they did to Scot McCloughan.

It’s appropriate that Washington considers itself the “team of the South”. A love affair with Cousins is normal there, but probably won’t become a long-term thing.

How many Washington fans does it take to change a light bulb? None, because they sit in the dark and claim the darkness pays tribute to the room’s heritage and history.

Now, I know some Washington fans might get salty about me saying all this. They’ll probably handle it worse than Mike Shanahan handled the career of Robert Griffin III. I just hope they don’t get hopping mad, or they, like Griffin, could get a Wounded Knee.

The bottom line is this, that the Raiders are better than the Confederated Tribes at every position and at every level, and with better coaching. They will come into Washington and deliver a massacre not seen since influenza was introduced to the New World. And at the end, this is what we will see:

Raiders win, 34-23.”