Silver Minings: People sleeping on Raiders

Despite having one of the best offseasons in the NFL, many people aren’t expecting much from the Las Vegas Raiders.

Several media members have predicted the Raiders to finish in third or last place in the AFC West, partially because the Los Angeles Chargers and Denver Broncos also made a few significant additions since February. And the Kansas City Chiefs have been the top dog in the division for so long that they’re getting the benefit of the doubt.

However, NFL Network’s Rich Eisen has been breaking the mold and has predicted Las Vegas to win the AFC West for the first time since 2002 on several occasions. Eisen has even gone so far as to list the Silver and Black as the third-most slept-on team in the league.

The Eagles, Saints and Steelers make sense as those are three teams that just snuck into the postseason or were borderline playoff teams last season, but including the Bengals is an interesting choice seeing as they’re the defending AFC Champions. In fairness to Eisen, he did give his full rationale in the video below to add some context.

Every year, there’s a team that the majority of the media brushes off and ends up being a legitimate Super Bowl contender, so here’s to hoping Eisner is the only smart guy in the business when it comes to the Raiders.

In other Raiders’ links:

• News recap: get caught up on all the Raiders news from the week with this week’s edition of Holder’s Handful.
• Awards prediction: taking a stab and predicting Las Vegas’ MVP, OPOY, DPOY, ROY and COY for this season.
• Marquette King ‘done fighting’ NFL’s discrimination: “I haven’t officially retired,” King tweeted Wednesday. “I’m just not fighting to get in a league that ignores the resume I’ve created that’s better [than] half of the punters in the NFL.”
• Al Davis, John Madden inducted into CA HOF: the godfather of the Raiders and the organization’s most recognizable head coach are finally getting some recognition from the Sunshine State.