Less than a week after the widely unexpected rise of the San Francisco Giants to the top of the baseball heap concluded (and concurrent with a strong opening charge by the Golden State Warriors), the Bay Area is faced with one of the least likely stories in all of sports: the Oakland Raiders are 5-4. For any other franchise, a 5-4 record would be at best a promising start. But these are the Oakland Raiders – a franchise that in the past decade has set the undisputed gold standard for the worst #1 draft pick in NFL history, and has become the first team ever in the league to lose at least 11 games 7 years running. That 5-4 record, then, is an astonishing achievement, especially given that it includes an emphatic overtime victory against the division leading Kansas City Chiefs last week. Yet more surprising than the team's success itself is the fact that it's come under the guidance of head coach Tom Cable.
Cable's credentials were as good as any that owner Al Davis was likely to find to helm his rudderless ship when Cable took over as interim head coach in 2008. By then, he had 7 years of coaching experience in college football and 2½ in the pros to his name; he was also well used to the way games were run in Oakland, having served as offensive line coach throughout Lane Kiffin's rocky tenure under the headset. More troubling was the baggage Cable dredged in his wake. Early on during his first training camp as head coach, Cable was involved in an argument with assistant coach Randy Hanson which ended with Cable punching Hanson in the face and fracturing his jaw. Soon after, news outlets began reporting physical abuse charges leveled against Cable by two ex-wives and an ex-girlfriend.
Meanwhile, the team itself continued on in its standard comedy of errors. Quarterback JaMarcus Russell, who was already frequently being cited as the biggest bust pro football had ever seen, supplemented his abysmal on-field performance with insubordination everywhere else, skipping practice to visit Vegas, persistently gaining weight, and otherwise exhausting the patience of the rabid Raider fanbase. The team would go on to pick wide-receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey in the 2009 Draft – letting his higher-rated counterpart Michael Crabtree fall to the cross-bay rival 49ers – and finish 5-11 in Cable's first full tenured season. Everything seemed to be proceeding according to fractured plan: to the casual observer, the franchise under Cable appeared, if anything, to be spinning further out of control than ever before.
Yet soon after, things began clicking into place. Russell was let go. The team weathered a tough opening to the season, in which it let a number of close games slip away, and then exploded on October 24, shell-shocking the Denver Broncos by a final score of 59-14 – the highest point tally in franchise history. Two impressive wins later, the Raiders hit their bye week with the playoffs in sight for the first time in what feels like an eternity. All under the watchful eye of Tom Cable's ever-present game face.
How is it, then, that Cable has managed – at least for the moment – to return the wayward Raiders to respectability, despite doing everything in his power to prove to the outside world that he's an objectionable human being? Some have suggested that the on-field success is the result of a roster that’s finally been allowed to gel, with a stable set of dependable athletes made cohesive by the overdue removal of the prima donna Russell. Others say it's the discipline that's been brought to the table by Cable's (apparently) iron fist that’s forced his ragtag crew to keep their minds on the field, instead of being swept up in the Felliniesque circus of Oakland football. Both are excellent points. The team is anchored by a set of solid players who, if unspectacular, nonetheless do their jobs well. And at least in the span of the three recent wins, the Raiders have persistently appeared to have arrived on the field with a game plan. Yet these wins have suggested something even more important, a profound change in personality – one which befits the Raider franchise and can be traced directly to Cable.
Historically, the Raiders have proudly been the assholes of the NFL. If the legendary Minnesota Vikings teams of the late 60s and 70s were famous for their cohesive, physical defense – the "Purple People Eaters" – the contemporaneous Raiders were better known for their unified desire to leave their opponents incapacitated. Nor was this reputation unearned: safety George Atkinson KOed Hall of Famer Lynn Swann for two weeks in 1976 with a hit to the head, and defensive end Howie Long was intimidating enough that he's in Chevrolet commercials to this day, doing nothing more than giving looks that let you know he'd deck your grandmother if he felt so inclined.
Tom Cable's troglodytic antics have no place in the modern, civilized world, but he's found the perfect home for them with the Oakland Raiders. Of course, this isn’t to suggest that kindly disposition was the problem holding this team back since 2002 (or, it should be explicitly noted, that Raiders fans endorse the deplorable practice of hitting women). The recent history was the consequence of incompetent playing and worse coaching, and it's the reversal of that trend that's given the Raiders a chance to compete this season. But the team has made an important statement. These aren't Vince Lombardi's soldiers, and they're not Bill Walsh's kids: they're Tom Cable's angry-ass motherfuckers. And that, for the first time in an eon, might prove to be enough to push the Silver and Black's season into January.
Cable's credentials were as good as any that owner Al Davis was likely to find to helm his rudderless ship when Cable took over as interim head coach in 2008. By then, he had 7 years of coaching experience in college football and 2½ in the pros to his name; he was also well used to the way games were run in Oakland, having served as offensive line coach throughout Lane Kiffin's rocky tenure under the headset. More troubling was the baggage Cable dredged in his wake. Early on during his first training camp as head coach, Cable was involved in an argument with assistant coach Randy Hanson which ended with Cable punching Hanson in the face and fracturing his jaw. Soon after, news outlets began reporting physical abuse charges leveled against Cable by two ex-wives and an ex-girlfriend.
Meanwhile, the team itself continued on in its standard comedy of errors. Quarterback JaMarcus Russell, who was already frequently being cited as the biggest bust pro football had ever seen, supplemented his abysmal on-field performance with insubordination everywhere else, skipping practice to visit Vegas, persistently gaining weight, and otherwise exhausting the patience of the rabid Raider fanbase. The team would go on to pick wide-receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey in the 2009 Draft – letting his higher-rated counterpart Michael Crabtree fall to the cross-bay rival 49ers – and finish 5-11 in Cable's first full tenured season. Everything seemed to be proceeding according to fractured plan: to the casual observer, the franchise under Cable appeared, if anything, to be spinning further out of control than ever before.
Yet soon after, things began clicking into place. Russell was let go. The team weathered a tough opening to the season, in which it let a number of close games slip away, and then exploded on October 24, shell-shocking the Denver Broncos by a final score of 59-14 – the highest point tally in franchise history. Two impressive wins later, the Raiders hit their bye week with the playoffs in sight for the first time in what feels like an eternity. All under the watchful eye of Tom Cable's ever-present game face.
How is it, then, that Cable has managed – at least for the moment – to return the wayward Raiders to respectability, despite doing everything in his power to prove to the outside world that he's an objectionable human being? Some have suggested that the on-field success is the result of a roster that’s finally been allowed to gel, with a stable set of dependable athletes made cohesive by the overdue removal of the prima donna Russell. Others say it's the discipline that's been brought to the table by Cable's (apparently) iron fist that’s forced his ragtag crew to keep their minds on the field, instead of being swept up in the Felliniesque circus of Oakland football. Both are excellent points. The team is anchored by a set of solid players who, if unspectacular, nonetheless do their jobs well. And at least in the span of the three recent wins, the Raiders have persistently appeared to have arrived on the field with a game plan. Yet these wins have suggested something even more important, a profound change in personality – one which befits the Raider franchise and can be traced directly to Cable.
Historically, the Raiders have proudly been the assholes of the NFL. If the legendary Minnesota Vikings teams of the late 60s and 70s were famous for their cohesive, physical defense – the "Purple People Eaters" – the contemporaneous Raiders were better known for their unified desire to leave their opponents incapacitated. Nor was this reputation unearned: safety George Atkinson KOed Hall of Famer Lynn Swann for two weeks in 1976 with a hit to the head, and defensive end Howie Long was intimidating enough that he's in Chevrolet commercials to this day, doing nothing more than giving looks that let you know he'd deck your grandmother if he felt so inclined.
Tom Cable's troglodytic antics have no place in the modern, civilized world, but he's found the perfect home for them with the Oakland Raiders. Of course, this isn’t to suggest that kindly disposition was the problem holding this team back since 2002 (or, it should be explicitly noted, that Raiders fans endorse the deplorable practice of hitting women). The recent history was the consequence of incompetent playing and worse coaching, and it's the reversal of that trend that's given the Raiders a chance to compete this season. But the team has made an important statement. These aren't Vince Lombardi's soldiers, and they're not Bill Walsh's kids: they're Tom Cable's angry-ass motherfuckers. And that, for the first time in an eon, might prove to be enough to push the Silver and Black's season into January.
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