The Other Fifteen

Winners? You'd better believe it.

Yesterday, both the Raiders and the 49ers won, which really hasn’t happened on the same day all too often in the last few years.  But there’s something different about these two teams that makes me think they will get back some of their mystique and be back to their winning ways in the very near future.  When I started thinking about this, the only explanation I could come up with is the coaching changes both teams made in the middle of last year.  But not just the coaching changes, the theater that came with them.

First came Mike Singletary for the Niners.  He came into his first game as a coach, immediately benched his starting QB, pulled down his pants in the locker room at half time to illustrate how his team was being embarrassed, sent his starting tight end to the showers before the game was over, then went on this awesome and epic coaching rant.

Yeah!  You tell ‘em, Mike!  If you’re not inspired by that speech, I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you.  I LOVE this guy.  He was the leader of the 85 Bears, and the prototype for the middle linebacker position as it’s currently played and drawn up (he’s the reason they call the position the “Mike” backer).  He was the Peyton Manning of defense, more cerebral than physical, coming to the line and calling out assignments for his defensive teammates as he read the offensive formations and made adjustments to the coverage based on what he saw.  There is literally no way he can not be a successful coach.  I’ve been telling my SF friends since last year that they have no idea how lucky they are to have him.  He handled the Michael Crabtree drama with the same attitude he showed in the video above, and properly prepared the players he has for winning.  And they’re doing just that, getting off to a 2-0 start.  If they can ride Frank Gore and Patrick Willis past the rest of their weak division, the 49ers could be looking at the playoffs THIS season, let alone in the future.

Then there’s the Raiders.  If you had told me just three weeks ago that they would look like a legitimate and respectable team, I wouldn’t have even laugh, because humor is rooted in truth and there’s no way that statement would have even resembled reality.  But here we are after week 2, and the Raiders are 1-1, with a close win in their division and a very close loss in their division.  They play physical D, with sacks from new Raider Richard Seymore, hard hits from Thomas Howard, and great coverage from Nnamdi Asomugha.  They have a young and inexperienced offense, but one with a lot of talent once they harness it, especially in Darren McFadden and JaMarcus Russel.  How did they get here?

Well, first we have the surreal firing of Lane Kiffin by Al Davis.  This has to be one of the strangest moments in sports for so many reasons.  But then you have Tom Cable taking over despite having a very short and unspectacular resume.  The rest of last year after the coaching change didn’t go well.  Then, right before the season, he punched an assistant coach and broke his jaw. That can only happen with the Raiders.  So all the evidence was pointing toward another chaotic year, and then they come out of the gate looking respectable, and have an outside shot at unseating the Chargers for the AFC West (goddamn the Western divisions suck right now).

So what did we learn from these examples?  If you want to turn around a once-proud-but-fallen franchise, just hire a coach that will act so crazy and be so intimidating that everyone will immediately fall in line.  If you were a player in the bay area, would you do something to piss your coach off right now?  I didn’t think so.