IBC

In 2001 I was rooting for the Pats that game cause I'd liked Bledsoe since I was little, but as I was watching that, a couple plays before I distinctly remember saying, if they blitz Woodson he can cause a fumble cause Brady's never looking that way. Sure enough that's what happened, and there's no way in the world that's not a fumble. No way. But the NFL has to do whatever they can to screw over the Raiders, and because of that, we were stuck with the Pats for the last 10 years.

A major thing I noticed at the 'Tuck Rule" game..was that the Patriots ahd energy and moved like a team with something to prove. The Raiders seemed to lack fire. I think they were arrogant and felt the game was decided before the game started. That would have and has done them in one way or another the last 25 years.

Raiders played the game with very little passion(outward at least) that day

Astros wrote:A major thing I noticed at the 'Tuck Rule" game..was that the Patriots ahd energy and moved like a team with something to prove. The Raiders seemed to lack fire. I think they were arrogant and felt the game was decided before the game started. That would have and has done them in one way or another the last 25 years.

Raiders played the game with very little passion(outward at least) that day

I don't agree with this at all. Maybe after they got punched in the stomach by the refs they were completely deflated (and what team wouldn't be after what really should've been a game-ending fumble recovery followed by kneel-downs), but this was one of the best games the team played all year, considering it was on the road in the snow. They were at times a weird combo of an extremely fiery coach and QB and the rarely emotional Rice and Brown at WR. I don't think its going out on a limb to say neither of future HOFers Rod and Chuck Woodson played "without fire" that day. It was a playoff game and they were a veteran team. This was not a team that suffered from the current Raider epidemic of apathy. That attitude really only became pervasive when Rice + Brown left/retired, Gannon got injured, and Al Davis brought in Randy Moss, Kerry Collins and the least fiery man alive, Norv Turner.

One of my favorite clips of the Gannon/Gruden-era Raiders occasionally makes me feel better about the decade-long train-wreck my team has become.

However, if that fails, this usually does the trick.

I was there and fron the get go..including warm ups and the coin toss. New England was pumped up and ready. They jumped to there feet and got in and out of the huddle quickly. It just seemed like they played with more energy. Granted..thats just how it looked from there. I cant say the Raiders werent ready. They were more a veteran team. New England was also at home.

That has been my view about it since then.

I dont know if the Raiders would have gotten thru Pittsburgh the following week anyway.

You don't know if a veteran team full of future Hall of Famers would've beat a Kordell Stewart led Steelers team that got beat mostly by a blocked FG for a TD and a punt return for a TD?

No..I dont think they would have beat the Steelers.

Astros wrote:No..I dont think they would have beat the Steelers.

That first YouTube clip I posted is Rich Gannon shredding the very same Steelers en route to a 30-17 victpry @ Pittsburgh in game 2 of the following season. I think they would've had a pretty good shot at the Steelers, which should've been an easier game than the one @ New England.

I am not saying the Steelers would have blown em out or anything. Raiders were not a bad team that year. That year the Rams also beat the Pats during the season(later then week 2) and New England shocked em in the Super Bowl.

1. Every team feels they get fucked over by the refs from time to time. The good teams come back and make plays. The Raiders didn't.

2. Watch the video again. Brady's arm was moving. Get over it.

3. As for the NFL wanting to fuck over the Raiders. Are you that paranoid? That's pathetic. Whining about the refs is the only thing more pathetic than whining about injuries. Get over it.

Was Brady's intended receiver his feet? The Tuck Rule is stupid. They didn't review Kurt Warner's fumble at the end of the Cardinals Super Bowl against Pitt and it sure looked like his arm was going forward. Selective enforcement. Had the Tuck Rule even been enforced before?

As for #3, Bren, are you a student of NFL history? I'm not a Raiders fan, but I know the history of the league and I know the shady shit that's happened with them. The Tuck Rule, then you have the Immaculate Reception which was an illegal play for the time period. The 1975 AFC title game, the tarp breaks at Three Rivers but the only part of the field that freezes is beyond the hashmarks (hmmm, the Steelers were an inside power running team and a frozen field eliminates Cliff Branch who always torched the Steelers, nothing fishy there), in the 1977 AFC title game a Denver running back was hit as he started his dive at the goalline to get over the pile, fumbled and the ball was being returned for a TD by the Raiders when the play was blown dead.

Hell I'll go even further by pointing out the lack of Raiders in the Hall of Fame with similar or better numbers than contemporaries (Dan feel free to tag in whenever you like). Cliff Branch has better numbers than Stallworth and Swann (3000 more yard and 16 more TDs than Swann and almost identical numbers to Stallworth), he won 3 Super Bowls but he's not in the hall and will never get in since Cris Carter and Andre Reed can't. Lester Hayes was arguably the best corner of the 80s and he's not in. The most similar careers to Kenny Stabler on pro football reference include Aikman, Namath, Bradshaw and Lenny Dawson but the Snake can't even sniff Canton plus the guy was far more of a badass off the field than Namath ever was. Ray Guy is the greatest punter in the history of the game and there's no debate and he can't get in the discussion. John Madden has the highest winning percentage ever for a coach and he was retired 30 years before he got in. Don't forget Tim Brown either.

IMO you need to rewrite the rule. the tuck rule right now is too broad, and leads to things like that bullshit call, rewrite it, if the qb's hand is below his shoulder its fair game imo

According to the current rule a QB could pump-fake and hold the ball in front of him and essentially be immune from fumbling if he's sacked. Or course, no QB in his right mind would rely on this rule because they know it's such a stupid rule the refs would never ever make a call based on it during a game, and it'd just end up being called a fumble (as it should be). Oh, except that one time. No way the league was going to change the rule after and allow Al Davis an "I told you so" moment. They don't have to change it, they just won't enforce it ever again. Even Brady chuckles about it, knowing it was bullshit. He also knows it doesn't matter if the call was bullshit, because nobody's making him give his trophy back.

No question the Raiders have a longer history of getting jobbed by officials than any other franchise. The immaculate reception was not only an illegal play according to the rules at the time, but it wasn't even a "reception" since a number of players have said the ball hit the ground before Franco Harris "caught" it.

I'm not generally a "league-conspiracy" guy, but it is kind of odd that ever since Al Davis sued the league successfully multiple times the Raiders have been at or near the top of the league in penalties. Different personnel, different coaches (Gruden and Shanahan's teams magically ceased to have penalty issues once they moved on to other franchises), same result year-in and year-out. This one's really hard to figure. Everyone knows half the penalties occurring on the field aren't called. They could call holding on almost every play. My opinion is that the refs just call more of them against the Raiders. Maybe it was intentional a long time ago under Rozelle, and now they just call more penalties against both teams when the Raiders are playing, but something is different in the way Raider games are officiated, because there's no other logical explanation when players and coaches leave and all of a sudden shake their penalty issues.

The Raiders do get jobbed by the Officials.

When you paralyze people because of cheap hits..that goes with the territory.(Thank Jack Tatum)

When your owner sues the NFL(even if he had a good point) getting screwed very well could be a result. I do think the Raiders past does sometimes catch up with them. I also have never really witnessed a disciplined team. That the kind of player Al Davis seems to go after..the retreads and the odd balls and guys who need another chance. How many guys have the Raiders drafted/signed in the last 20 years that fit that?Marinovich..the guy from Ohio State this year...

I'll agree that the rule is stupid. But it was enforced correctly, and every rule has examples that can be pointed out when it wasn't enforced correctly. But it's not even the stupidest rule in the NFL. Far worse would be the inability to challenge penaties, not being able to return a fumbled extra point for a TD (absolutely retarded), the excessive protection of QBs, the excessive celebration rules... The NFL is a league chock full of stupid rules.

Maybe the Raiders get penalized more because they bring in shitbag players and tolerate shitbag behavior. When you're a Raiders coach, you're not the one making personnel decisions, that's Big Al, who insists on bringing in retreads, rejects and athletes who can't play football.

That said, when you pick a fight with your bosses and co-workers, you can't expect to not be ostracized. Play up the Bad Boy image and you'll get treated that way.

1. The point is that they chose that moment as the only time I've ever seen them apply or use that rule in a game, even when similar situations have arisen. Every other time they call it a fumble, but after a phone call upstairs that time they decided to use a rarely-if-ever-applied rule when the alternative would've caused exactly zero people to think twice about what was a standard fumble call. Game over.

2. Al Davis's suits against the league weren't superfluous. He typically won. The league didn't try to stop Art Modell or any other owner from moving their team to a city where they could get a better stadium deal, yet for some reason saw fit to try to block Davis from moving HIS team to LA the first time around. Can you blame the guy for suing?

3. The Tatum hit was a legal hit. He didn't intend to hurt Stingley. It's football, and unfortunate injuries like that happen. Fortunately less and less, now that the league has made rules to protect player safety, but these are large men running into each other at full speed. The Raiders being a "dirty" team is a myth perpetrated by the Steelers. When Chuck Noll famously tried to bring charges against them, the claim was not pursued once it was determined the Steelers were guilty of the same "dirty tactics" as the Raiders.

4. Claiming Davis consistently drafted players predisposed to penalization over the 20+ year span the Raiders have been among the league leaders in penalties is ridiculous. Does all the man coverage they play put them in position for more defensive penalties? Maybe, but other teams play man also, and that alone can't explain the consistency with which they're penalized compared to other teams.

5. Somehow all the shitbags, rejects and retreads Al Davis has collected over the years have yielded 3 world championships and 13 Hall-of-Famers (and it should be at least 15). Al's draft record is much better than popular conception gives him credit for. He drafted poorly at the QB position, but even then he was taking consensus top guys (Russell, Marinovich) with those picks. To some degree he made up for it with a keen eye for undervalued veteran QBs (see: Plunkett, Gannon, Kerry Collins).

As far as the hit by Tatum..Legal and dirty are not one and the same. That douchebag never even made any attempt to speak with Stingley or reach out to him at all.

I dont blame Davis at all. I live in Syracuse NY now. Al Davis went to school here. After reading about the many good things the man has done for people...I now realize why it seems former Raiders are very loyal.

Davis and the Raiders dont draft guys that have a tendency for being penalized. They draft and sign guys who often have or are thought to have issues as far as attitude...they seem to get a higher percentage of these guys then other teams. Often time that attitude is indeed true. Basically they get penalized because they have a higher % of assholes. Because they are assholes they do asshole things.

You can go thru and add titles to any teams. Most teams have could of's and should of's..but the reality is how many they actually have. So its 13. And none recently.

Nice to see Bren had time to drop in and spam this blog, but not time to make his pick.

Astros wrote:As far as the hit by Tatum..Legal and dirty are not one and the same. That douchebag never even made any attempt to speak with Stingley or reach out to him at all.

I dont blame Davis at all. I live in Syracuse NY now. Al Davis went to school here. After reading about the many good things the man has done for people...I now realize why it seems former Raiders are very loyal.

Davis and the Raiders dont draft guys that have a tendency for being penalized. They draft and sign guys who often have or are thought to have issues as far as attitude...they seem to get a higher percentage of these guys then other teams. Often time that attitude is indeed true. Basically they get penalized because they have a higher % of assholes. Because they are assholes they do asshole things.

You can go thru and add titles to any teams. Most teams have could of's and should of's..but the reality is how many they actually have. So its 13. And none recently.

Tatum went to the hospital after the game but was turned away.

Davis always offered veteran players unhappy elsewhere a clean slate and a fresh opportunity. Some responded, some didn't. Still, there have been as many hard-working stand-up guys as there have guys with "attitude problems." Guys like Rice, Brown, Gannon were consummate pros. Ken Stabler could stay out boozing all he wanted, so long as he kept playing well. In the past couple years Davis actually made a concerted effort to bring in character guys (see: Seymour trade) and they still managed to set NFL records for penalties and yards.

Something that's overlooked in considering popular and league conception of the Raiders is that at numerous times in their history they've been closely associated with different elements of african-american society (including the LA gang culture of the 80s). We're talking about a league that had to put in a rule forcing teams to interview non-white coaches and a franchise that always had a lot of black players and was the first in the modern era to hire a black head coach (and a hispanic head coach). Nowadays, a black player can get a rep for a poor attitude just by having gold teeth and tattoos. Don't you think some of the Raiders so-called "unsavory characters" and "bad attitudes" earned those reps for less than that? For a while, it was an advantage they exploited (as they should have) to make opposing teams fearful about facing them, but even if they were rougher in the 70s than most teams, they don't play any "dirtier" than anyone else these days, as far as I can tell. Yet the penalties are always there.