Twisted-Panther, I thought your question was a rhetorical one: were the Rams that bad or were the Raiders that good? I thought it was a good question, but I didn't think it needed an answer. That can be asked of almost any sporting event.
The answer, naturally, lies somewhere in the middle.
I think the biggest difference was this, and I know this is severe hindsight to be bringing it up now, but the game-planning was completely different. Oakland game-planned specifically for the Rams. I don't know how to post links, so Google "Kiffin shows promise as a play-caller in Raiders' win" to see where I'm coming from. I'm not sure if it's posted here at
ClanRam. I originally saw it on another Rams board. The Rams, OTOH, barely treated the game any differently than the previous week's, continuing to rest key starters and employing a very vanilla game plan. I don't think the Raiders were missing any key starters but could easily be wrong.
When one team shows up to play, and the other shows up to practice? Not pretty. The Raiders -should- show up to play. I'm sure you wouldn't want them coasting through preseason after last year's results. The Rams I guess didn't feel as obligated, though they clearly had, and have, areas they have to get cleaned up for the regular season. I expected them to be obligated and got caught off-guard. They're not the GSOE Rams who could toss the whole preseason away, get killed on the scoreboard and the stat sheet, and legitimately not care.
And I'm not letting go of the officiating; I still feel most of the DPI's called on the Rams Friday night would not have been called by other crews. You and I have both watched plenty of football, and seen many, many plays like those not get flagged. Why Friday night? Search me.
Tye Hill's only a second-year guy; maybe he's not getting those calls now that he'll get later in his career.
So don't the Raiders deserve any credit? They do. They had a better game-plan; i.e., they had one. The defensive line was strong, which I think I indicated. I think Pace should have played better but took nothing from Burgess on the other side. Or from Sands in the middle. He is a load. If I wasn't suitably impressed with the Raider offense, I can't apologize, because coach Kiffin wasn't, either. (nfl.com recap) I thought the running game was effective but my fellow Ram fans correctly informed me the Rams had a good night on a ypc basis, which I think was 3.4 but I'm too lazy too look up. Culpepper's mobility was a key and I agree is a big improvement over what you've had there.
Regards & good luck to your team,
--Mike
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