Raiderdamus’ Friday Foretelling: Raiders vs. Dolphins

We are required to inform you that these Foretellings are works of satire and are not for the faint of heart. Due to their content they should not be read by anyone. Please enjoy at your own risk. -The EditorGreetings Frostee Rucker Jersey , Raider Nation! It is I, the man of the hour, the tower of power too sweet to be sour, with the highest brainpower sending my haters to the showers, Raiderdamus the Great and Powerful.The Raiders took a tough loss in a difficult place to play last week at Denver, but they’ll get another shot to get in the win column this weekend at Miami. As is my custom, I’ve summoned the Great Beyond, who even after all these years has nothing better to do, to tell us the outcome of the Raiders-Dolphins game. Here is what the Great Old One had to say. Behold his wisdom, mortals, with fear and trepidation:“You’re back again! Quite the meltdown by the Raiders last week. Jon Gruden spent so much time in the second half of games in the last ten years trying to figure out which player being a Gruden Grinder would be the most kitsch, that he forgot there were four quarters in a game. Let’s hope he remembers soon.Who you got this week? Miami? It’s supposed to be warm there, but it’s probably good the Raiders are wearing their black jerseys in this game. Miami is now one of the coldest places in the world, having been in New England’s shadow since 2001.The last time Miami was relevant was for this:Much like the Raiders, the Dolphins are a once-great franchise which has fallen on hard times. Since the last time they won a Super Bowl, every single Star Wars movie was released. There are more Super Bowl rings in Russia than on the hands of Dolphins players. The Marlins won two World Series while the Heat won three NBA Championships. The last time they won a playoff game, Bill Clinton was president and CDs were a new technology. The top album was Nirvana’s Nevermind, and Ryan Tannehill was four years old, wetting his bed on the regular. At that time, only his mom saw him do that, but now he does it every week in front of 40,000 people.Miami drafted a wide receiver from Texas A&M to be their quarterback, and to this day they keep expecting him to ‘break out’ and become a top passer. The only thing Ryan Tannehill is going to break is his leg, and the only time he has ever or will ever break out is in seventh grade before he got his shipment of Proactiv.Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty ImagesThe Dolphins have a history of great players, none better than Dan Marino, who might be the most naturally talented quarterback who ever lived. Marino gave his heart, soul, and Achilles tendon to the Dolphins organization, and the very last game of his career ended with a 62-7 playoff loss to the Jaguars. Dan Marino has spent his later years hocking Isotoner gloves and weight-loss programs, and has missed the embarrassment of having his home stadium named for a company owned by this man:Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for Escape To MargaritavilleIf there are two things that scream “I don’t give a fuck” they are Jimmy Buffett and Dolphins football. Jimmy sings songs about dropping everything and having a beer, while the Dolphins make all their fans want to leave at halftime and drown themselves in the ocean. It’s five o’clock everywhere when you’re dead.Of course, the Dolphins haven’t had an easy time of it, stuck in a division with the Patriots. The only people more efficient than the Patriots at killing dolphins are Japanese fishermen. But the Dolphins have really tried to keep up, and a few years ago drafted this man to be their left tackle of the future:I’m not trying to say that the Dolphins leaked the video of Laremy Tunsil hotboxing himself with weed on purpose so they could draft him, but nobody has benefited that much from a gasmask since World War 1. Wake up, sheeple!Drafting is all well and good, but to be a quality team you have to hold on to quality players. In the last few years Authentic Leon Hall Jersey , the following people have left Miami:Jay AjayiJarvis LandryOlivier VernonNdamukong SuhBrent Grimes’ wifeSuh might be the biggest loss here. When you have an elite pass rusher, you have to do whatever you can to hold onto them. Good pass rushers are hard to find!With the loss of Ajayi, the Dolphins’ running game consists of Kenyan Drake and the reanimated husk of Frank Gore, who predates the Flood and keeps himself alive by absorbing the essences of 4,500 Cuban asylum-seekers every month. On the ninth day, God created Frank Gore, and saw that he was good. Frank Gore does not just have a lunch pail mentality, he literally invented the lunch pail. Before Frank, we just used bags or dried-out cow stomachs or whatever.It’s hard to picture Frank Gore as a Dolphin, because it really isn’t a ‘gritty intangibles fullback manball’ type of place ever since Larry Csonka ascended to Heaven on a chariot made of Moustache Afficionado magazines. Now it’s more of a ‘let’s do cocaine on camera and run our boat into those rocks over there’ type of place. A “say hello to my little friend” type of place.The Dolphins, being an East Coast team, are often shipped over to the UK for games. The last time the Raiders played the Dolphins in England, they got beaten so badly they fired Dennis Allen, and they should have given him the full William Wallace treatment. But the Dolphins are so boring that the Brits would rather start another war over heroin in China than go see another Dolphins game.The Dolphins are boring, yes, but they’re also ruthlessly efficient, and are almost always better than they seem against bad competition. Ryan Tannehill kinda sucks, but he’s never bad in the way Nathan Peterman is, he’s bad in the Andy Dalton way where he tries to do too much and isn’t quite as good as his brain and the quality of his wife tells him he is.Even though the Dolphins don’t have a ton of weapons on offense, they do have a pretty good line and a fierce defense with quality edge rushers and linebackers. They should be able to hold serve at home, if just barely.Dolphins win, 23-21.” Another game, another complete disaster by the Raiders in London, who frankly should just never go to England to play again. This was just as bad as the debacle a few years ago that got Dennis Allen fired, and if Jon Gruden hadn’t taken the job just this year he should be getting fired too. This was an unacceptable performance in every aspect of the game, and the low point of a season filled with nothing but low points. Let’s look at today’s winners and losers, keeping in mind that the Great Beyond is an honorary winner for correctly predicting the Seahawks to score 27 points, though he gave the Raiders far too much credit.WINNERS1) Russell WilsonAs usual, Wilson was basically Seattle’s entire offense today. He went 17/23 for 222 yards, three touchdown passes and a quarterback rating of 125.4. The Raiders tried to bring pressure, but Wilson was much too mobile and aware for that. He makes his living running for his life, and burned the Raiders for a long touchdown pass while dancing around would-be sackers in the first half. Yet another masterful performance from Seattle’s best player.2) Arden KeyMany of the Raiders players competed with no heart today, but Key wasn’t one of them. He had Oakland’s only sack on the day and had four tackles, one for a loss, and two quarterback hits. He definitely could use some more pass rush talent around him, but Key has the look of a guy who will develop into a fine pass rusher off the edge.3) Frank ClarkClark had character concerns coming out of Michigan in 2015, as he’d been dismissed from the Wolverines after being arrested for domestic violence. But since then he’s been an absolute stud on the Seattle defensive line. He kept up his strong play today with 2.5 sacks and three QB hits Youth Johnny Townsend Jersey , and was basically in Derek Carr’s face on every play. Kolton Miller was clearly ailing with a leg injury, and Clark ate him for lunch.4) Jalen RichardIt’s clear by now that Richard isn’t going to get many carries this season. The Raiders try to force Marshawn Lynch early, and by the time it’s Richard’s turn to get some snaps, the Raiders are so far behind that they have to abandon the run. So Richard is making his living being a receiving back, and excelling at that. Today he caught seven balls for 48 yards and, sadly enough, was the Raiders’ leading receiver. With Carr under pressure all game he often went to his safety valve, and Richard did the best he could with that.LOSERS1) Jon GrudenYeah, I know they played in London and that sucks. Yeah, I know the offensive line is basically non-existent. I get all that. But this did not look like a team that was ready to compete, or play, or do anything more than go down to the Winchester and wait for this whole thing to blow over.Jon Gruden has tried to reshape this team since taking over, but he’s done nothing but destroy it so far. The Raiders look worse than last year, and are probably the worst team in football right now. They would lose to the Bills, the Cardinals, Alabama, the UC Davis women’s volleyball team and the Racing Sausages from Milwaukee’s Miller Park.Perhaps Gruden has some kind of coherent long-term plan. Reggie McKenzie’s first few years were painful too. But the Raiders have been doing this for over 15 years. Even if Gruden’s master plan comes to fruition, will he have any fans left by that point? How can he realistically keep his job that long at this rate?2) Raiders offensive lineI haven’t seen people get dominated this completely since I watched 50 Shades of Grey one night on HBO. The line couldn’t get any push in the run game and gave up pressure on almost every single pass play, allowing six sacks on Derek Carr. It’s frankly a miracle Carr was able to throw for over a hundred yards given what he was dealing with. The one time Carr threw a great pass for a long gain, it was negated by a holding penalty by Jon Feliciano. This line is a MASH unit right now with Donald Penn and Kelechi Osemele out, and Kolton Miller playing through injury, but this level of play is unacceptable for an NFL offensive line.3) The refsThe NFL wants to continue to expand its brand in Europe, and one of the best ways to make sure that doesn’t happen is by showing the people of London a penalty-ridden slogfest like what we saw today. The game had 13 total penalties, of which the Raiders were miraculously responsible for only five. But the most egregious flag was one that wasn’t thrown, on a helmet-to-helmet collision that knocked Amari Cooper from the game. In a year when the emphasis is supposed to be on limiting head injuries, one of the Raiders’ best players suffered one with no penalty assessed on the field. Way to go, NFL.4) Raider NationWe are a proud people, and nobody should ever feel sorry for us. We have chosen this existence, and many of us deserve it. But we were sold a bill of goods this year, thinking it would be different. It’s not. It’s more of the same, possibly even worse, and this front office is actively hamstringing this team with baffling moves seemingly every week. We sit and watch every game, because we love the team. And, like a wayward child, we will always love them even when we don’t like them. But it really, really sucks to be us right now. Until next spring when we have the first overall pick.