The 2002 Oakland Raiders were hoping for some redemption. They’d won the AFC West in 2001 before suffering a controversial loss in the divisional playoffs against the New England Patriots. Playing in a Saturday night blizzard in Foxboro, the Raiders led by three late in the game when Tom Brady appeared to fumble on a sack with Oakland recovering. Upon replay, the officials ruled Brady’s arm had been moving forward.
The Oakland Raiders went from 2003-09 without ever winning more than five games in a season. The past two years they’ve gone 8-8. Each time they’ve rewarded the head coach—first Tom Cable, then Hue Jackson—with the pink slip. And people dare to say this organization has become dysfunctional? Can the Raiders push past the .500 level under yet another new coach, this time Dennis Allen, and make the playoffs for the first time since their AFC championship run of 2002? TheSportsNotebook breaks down the Raiders…
Moneyball has been a huge success. The movie, that is.
On second thought, the movie’s performance actually mirrored its on-field counterpart fairly closely, if you consider that it smartly exceeded expectations, charmed fans, and yet still didn’t win anything of consequence.
A year ago it was the Green Bay Packers who went into Week 17 not even sure if they would be in the playoffs. We all know how it turned out. The long route to the Super Bowl has become more common in recent years—in 2005 Pittsburgh came out of the #6 seed. The next […]