BOLT ANALYSIS - WEEK 1

Uh…..that was not what I expected. At halftime, we called Direct TV to see if we could declare a mandatory nationwide blackout. Thankfully, only 6 people west of the Rocky Mountains actually saw the game as the final play occurred after 1:00 AM in the East.

What a dog of a game. I know this team has been plagued by slow starts..but this was beyond that. For three quarters, each one of our players lost every man to man battle on the field. Offensive Line…Defensive Line…receivers…blocking backs. Everyone. Not sure if we underestimated the Raiders…or just were not ready to play. Although both of these options are terrible….they are better than the one that keeps creeping into my mind…"we are just not that good". I hope that is not true…I hope our defense is not really that soft…but all I can say is that if we are playing a team with any semblance of a quarterback, that game is over by the 3rd quarter.

Lets talk about that. Jamarcus Russel is a bust. Despite the announcers trying to prop the 3rd year "kid" up all game, he is just not a good player. He reminds me so much of other number 1 picks like Ryan Leaf, Alex Smith, Akili Smith, or Tim Couch. The pro game just did not slow down enough for them. He has a cannon for an arm, but he just has no touch. Lets face it…we put no pressure on this guy all game long, he had two rookie receivers starting and a second year running back. He just could not complete passes. Missing on 4 or 5 wide open receivers, not helped by 2 or 3 easy drops, and blown out by a dropped TD pass and a bone crushing hit that jarred another ball loose. He is bad. Period. Yet somehow, on 4th and 15 the self proclaimed all world corner Cromartie and soon to be bench material Clinton Hart watch as a rookie receiver runs by both of them to catch a 57 yard TD. 4th and 15 and you think "the other guy will cover him". Who else is back there? Why is the title of your position "safety"? So nobody goes behind you. Beyond inexcusable. That is job-loss type of stuff. Or it should be.

Perhaps the biggest negative of all is that two offensive linemen go down in this game. Have not yet seen the reports, but I have to believe it is bad news. Any time you see the cart…you are probably done. Bet the Chargers are feeling great right now about releasing veteran guards Mike Goff and Kynan Forney and going with rookies. Now our starters are the central defenders of the Polish National Soccer team: Dombrowski and Murckowski. Uh oh. This is bad, guys and gals. Losing Nick Hardwick and our promising rookie Vasquez in game 1 could be a disaster. Hate to resort to drama so early…but this is not good.

OK…so what are the positives? First and foremost, we won the game. That is big. You only play 16 of them and this was a road game. Rivers looked every bit the leader with two great 4th quarter drives after a tough first 3 quarters. Sproles looked great as usual despite three fumbles on kick offs…he almost took 2 to the house. Legedu and Jackson and Gates looked good. LT had flashes but, I am afraid this is just not the same guy. He does not run with any sort of spark anymore. They are saying he "turned his ankle" but how telling is it that he did not set foot on the field on their winning drive? The patchwork line held up and the Raiders just kept giving us the underneath passes. Still, a 90 yard drive inside of 2 minutes is huge no matter who you are playing. The only positive I can say about the defense is that they figured out the running game in the second half. That is it. They looked bad all game. No pressure whatsoever…Merriman's return was a joke…Castillo was nowhere. Again, a halfway decent QB just kills them.

Well, where do we go from here? Our next three games are against playoff teams, including the Super Bowl winner. Baltimore, Miami, and Pitt. At least the first two are at home. We can cross our fingers and hope that this was just a slow start and that we did not expect the Raiders to be so tough. Again, inexcusable in the NFL if that is true but at least it means we have room to improve. Cross your fingers and hope that Hardwick and Vasquez are salvageable. And…lets delete this game from the memory bank and hope that we are better than that. 1-0 baby, that is all that matters in the end.