Silver and Black Blog: They are who most thought they were

After the victory last week against Philadelphia, I was enjoying some of the positive press coverage until I came across something somewhere that basically said that the Raiders would go back to their old ways the next week.

I was a little perturbed. But, whoever wrote that (and it escapes me) was correct.

I obviously didn't see their dreadful performance coming. I thought the Jets were good, but in a somewhat Kool-Aid moment, I felt the Raiders were better.

Who cared that they only scored 13 points in beating the Eagles. Their defense played great, and JaMarcus Russell had somewhat of a minor breakthrough.

Unfortunately on Sunday, Russell looked out of place, and it's becoming ever more clear that he is not going to turn out to be the franchise quarterback I thought he would.

He'll start the rest of this season, and probably next. It doesn't seem as the Raiders have much of a choice.

True, there was failure all around on Sunday. The defense was horrible, although it's hard to place blame on the players when Russell is fumbling at his own goal line or throwing balls into the hands of defenders with great ease and accuracy.

The Raider receivers are young, but they've been catching footballs since Pop Warner. Hard to figure out why they can't hold on 15 or so years later. The special teams unit was especially bad.

But really, at the beginning of the season, what did we expect? We knew they wouldn't make the playoffs. Personally, I was hoping for seven wins or, at the very least, that they have some outside shot of a playoff berth in November.

Worse, it wasn't so much that they lost. It's that once again, they weren't competitive. The 38-0 defeat to the Jets on Sunday was the worst shutout loss at home in team history. The crowd of 39,000 and change was the lowest since their move back to Oakland, and the worst showing since 1968.

As I've said, until Al Davis leaves, I don't see things getting any better. His presence have led to poor drafts, poor free agent signings, dysfunction within the organization and the worst string of losing seasons in NFL history.

Making his presence so bad is here we are heading into a great head coaching free agent offseason, where guys like Bill Cowher, Mike Holmgren, Jon Gruden and Mike Shanahan are available.

Those are all impact coaches who could get this organization moving in the right direction if they wanted to be here. But with Al walking the hallways, no respected coach or general manager prospect would set foot inside the organziation.

So, put your feet back and watch Davis squander more years, more young talent and a passionate fan base.