BOLT ANALYSIS: WEEK 10: ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW

What we saw last night tells you all you need to know about the Boyz. After the 5^th game of the season, I asked the question, “Are we the worst 4-1 team in football?”. Pretty sure we now know the answer. A game like last night makes you put away the “all we needed was this…” comments and it makes you forget about “if we only made that one play”. A game like last night puts things in perspective, and actually lends some peace to our hand-wringing. Last night was not about a missed snap, or a last minute incomplete pass, or one bad play. Last night was a complete and utter illumination of a failed system. From the guy choosing players, to the guy coaching them, to the players themselves…we did not belong last night. We did not want it as much, and even if we did..we are not big enough or fast enough or good enough to get it. I am not going to spend a lot of time on this one followers, there simply was too much wrong with it. I believe it is now time to begin to talk about what we should hope for as the season progresses, because we should not be hoping about playoffs or anything else so implausible.

As a professional blogger, I must keep things even. I try not to get too ranty and I try not to overblow things. But I think we now need to hope for a meltdown. I believe we are in one now…but we need to hope for worse. I believe it is the only way that change will happen. We have put all our eggs in the basket you saw last night. Our players are not good enough, our coaches provide no inspiration, and our backups…our depth…is extremely poor. We were tied for first place coming into the game, playing at home, playing a hated foe for supremacy of our division. A foe that just got demolished by Tebow and the Broncos at home. A foe without their starting running back and BOTH of their starting corners. A foe with a QB who acknowledged he knew about “15 plays” a week or so ago. If that alone does not provide inspiration..what should? Our coaches? I think so. With the exception of a scripted first drive that went well, except blew up in the red zone as so many do…we were awful. We had 4 straight three and outs…we could not block, could not throw and could not catch. We seem to be schizophrenic when it comes to our running backs. Are we trying to let Mathews become our guy? Or not? He looks good for a play or two, then he is on the bench. I understand that Tolbert is a better blocker…and when McNeil went down we needed him. But with the way we are using these guys, neither will grow. Halftime down 17-3 and should have been worse with that stupid fake punt attempt.

We had some flashes in the second half, with rookie Vincent Brown making some circus catches. And what a travesty that the Hated Moron Hochuli took away a beautiful catch by the kid because of an obscure rule about the defender being out of bounds on the play. Amazing. We scored anyway on that drive but how ridiculous. But even with the good catches, and even though the game ended only 24-17, did any of you who witnessed it think it was close? Not me. Every Raider player blew up his counterpart on the line. We could not tackle as a team, we could not cover as a team. This is not a slam on Weddle’s poor tackling or the “battle” to start between Cason and Gilchrist. This is team-wide ineptitude. And, hey, I get it, we have a lot of injuries. We had three starters out on our offensive line. That is tough. But this is the NFL. They had a lot of guys out too. Dombrowski has played for three years in this league, how is it possible he got so completely outclassed. And Clary, after a great game at Green Bay, looked like a high school kid out there too. The Raiders are tough and physical, they hit hard, but they are not that good. We made them look great.

We now find ourselves in the meat of the schedule at 4-5 with no prospects. We need to play Chicago in Chicago next weekend. They hit hard too. Which brings me back to the point of this article. I try hard to tinker with the lineup. I spend time thinking about Philip’s head and his psyche, I think about a player here and a player there. We are done tinkering folks. We need the sledgehammer. We need to blow this team up and start again. It is not going to happen now, obviously, we have a season to limp through. But wouldn’t the most negative thing possible be if we limped to an 8-8 finish out of the playoffs. That would give the ownership every reason to trot out the lame excuses and say we are still close. We are not close, and we need to make changes. Lots of them. What I saw last night was a football team that has no identity and, for many, what looks like no desire.

So, lets review the Seven Stages of Grief. First, there is Shock and Denial:  Yes, we have been in that stage for a long time. Second, there is Pain and Guilt. Of course we have spent many hours there as well, trying to justify what we are seeing each week. Third, is Anger and Bargaining. This is where I spend most of my time..being angry and bargaining. Bargaining with the roster, the coaches, the “mindset”, the toughness level..whatever I can grasp. The Fourth level is where I am now, just getting past Depression and entering Reflection. It is a good place to be followers, no more anger, no more sadness. Just reflection on what was and a looking forward to what might be once the corner is turned. We need to blow this thing up folks, what we have been clinging to since the good teams of the 2006-2009 period no longer exists. The last couple of stages in the Seven Stages are the good ones. I think they need to start soon to get there.

OK. OK. So I broke a rule. Here it is, Week 9, and I am already talking about blowing it up and starting over. Let me be clear, I am not giving up, the Bolts have surprised me many times before. They could still win some games and provide us with some fun and entertainment. No, my goal here is to get all of our heads around the fact that this team….the one on the field last night…will not be able to get it done. Change has to come…let’s hope the ownership and management think the same thing.