Reactions to Sunday's Game

First of all, let me start out by saying, there is no way to predict the correct outcome of a game successfully all the time. Fortunately, I was wrong on my prediction this week, way wrong. It seemed as though the Raiders decided to unleash 7 years of frustration in one beautiful, poetic Sunday afternoon in Denver. They didn't just defeat the Broncos, they humiliated them in front of the entire NFL, rendering them helpless and lost, much like the way the Jets and Giants did to us last year around the same time. Never in our wildest dreams would we imagine that THIS team would break the all-time Raiders scoring record in a game. Surely not the team that scored only 55 points last year in a seven game stretch spanning two months; that has scored 16 and 17 offensive TD's two years out of the last 4. On a day when they would score 8 TD's and break the all-time NFL record for points scored through 3 Quarters (59), it seemed as though tomorrow we would all wake up and find out that somehow what we were witnessing the night before was just a fantasy and we would realize that they had lost the game and slipped into another sinking season at 2-5. But as Monday morning turned into day, we found ourselves in second place in the division in a seemingly upside down world. Where the Chiefs reign supreme with the Raiders hot on their tail at 2-0 in the division. The Broncos and Chargers bringing up the rear looking like the old hapless Raiders and Chiefs of years past. Here are some more thoughts from that glorious afternoon:

Run DMC is here to take over the world. Darren McFadden is everything we need him to be. I'm fully convinced that if McFadden was healthy and played against the 49ers, we would have won that game and would be sitting at 4-3. He and Gradkowski make this offensive machine move. Now all we need is Bruce to fully heal.

The defense is starting to put everything together slowly but surely. We have had spurts of dominance on defense in nearly every game but have only had a complete effort a couple of times. This game showed how well they can play as a unit. This is a team that is playing 6 new starters on defense and two rookies so naturally it was going to take time for them to gel. We need to see this same improvement this week against the Seahawks.

Campbell can be a good game manager. This is Gradkowski's team, but Campbell can get the job done if he can rely on the running game and work off play-action. He can't take over a game, however, like we needed him to against the 49ers when the running game was struggling. We know that we can rely on him when needed in a spot start.

Bad teams don't score 59 points. You can mark this down: No one will score more than 59 points in a game this year. These things don't happen too often. They also don't happen to bad teams. Bad teams don't just fall into 59 points. You won't ever see the Bills this year beat someone by 45 points. It's time to realize that we have turned a corner and the light at the end of the tunnel is near. We may not see it yet this year, but it is coming.

Unfortunately, I was unable to watch this historic game. These are just some things I noticed as I watched the updates on my phone. Who got to see the game? What were your thoughts on what you witnessed? Let me know what you think about our chances for the rest of the year.