First post.
I've been listening to the podcast for only a few months now and I'm left with a few impressions.
First, great job on the podcast. I live in northern Manitoba, Canada and getting Raider news is hard at the best of times, so being able to hear commentary and news about my favorite team is awesome.
Second, its great to hear from so many passionate Raider fans.
Third, I think that many of those that phone in are wrong concerning the life expectancy of Reggie McKenzie and Dennis Allen.
From what I can gather from those who are on the podcast, many in the Raider Nation are of two opinions.
1. Fire McKenzie and Allen now.
2. Give McKenzie and Allen one more year, but if we don't have a winning season, fire them.
I think that these people are setting themselves up for disappointment.
There was a comment on the last podcast about why would the Raiders give Allen a four year contract. The reason, I believe, is because the organization from Mark Davis on down is committed to giving him three years to build up the team as best he can before he'll be on the firing line.
In listening to other football commentators including the likes of Brian Billick, it seems that three years is a pretty standard time frame for a new hire to prove himself unless there is a dramatic failure on his part (ala Romeo Crennel in KC this year).
There were many changes on the Raiders this past season, which were planned by both McKenzie and Allen and I doubt that either expected to contend seriously for the playoffs given the rebuild they were beginning. Sure if things fell their way and they were competitive (like last year) they might make it but I don't think it was seriously expected. I'm sure the expectation was that they would do better than they did, especially on offense, but the person responsible for that dog's breakfast was fired (thankfully).
If one looks at the history of the Raiders, we can see that they have only three, 3, THREE winning seasons since returning to Oakland for the 1995 season. One I think can justifiably wonder who was more responsible for those winning seasons at the turn of the century; Al Davis or John Gruden.
However, we now have Reggie McKenzie at the helm and he's brought with him the Green Bay Packer method of building a team. If we look at their history we can see that since the 1995 season, the Packers have only had two, 2, TWO losing seasons.
Which method of building a team would you prefer going forward?
The method that produced 3 winning seasons in 18 or the one that produced only 2 losing seasons in 18 years?
I think that the answer is obvious, we'd all take the latter.
It will be a little while longer coming, but I'm willing to wait another couple of years to have a chance at a perennial winner rather than the constant knee-jerk reactions that have ruled the Raiders since Gruden left and has produced one of the worst stretches of football in NFL history.
I guess you can say that I've reached the acceptance phase, for good or ill, but in the end I think that its the proper perspective for looking at what is happening with the Raiders going forward.
