Angel
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Raiders, Niners not what they used to be
By Adam Schefter
NFL Analyst
Adam Schefter's "Around the League" reports and commentaries can be seen regularly on NFL Total Access.
(Oct. 5, 2006) -- Once -- and it doesn't seem that long ago -- the Raiders and 49ers each excelled in football the way both New York teams now do in baseball.
If John Madden wasn't driving Oakland to a championship, then Bill Walsh was doing it for San Francisco.
Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler was very good, but 49ers quarterback Joe Montana was simply the best.
When Fred Biletnikoff and Cliff Branch didn't compose one of the sport's most feared receiving tandems, then Jerry Rice and John Taylor did.
Raiders cornerback Lester Hayes made Stickem famous, while 49ers safety Ronnie Lott simply stuck it to 'em.
Oakland and San Francisco were pillars of pigskin power, with decorated pasts and hopeful futures. And then, it was as if someone more menacing than Albert Haynseworth stomped on the entire Bay Area, damaging each storied franchise's foundation.
How it all dissolved so quickly, and so oppressively, is startling and confounding. But now, the Raiders cannot win a game, and the 49ers struggle to do it.
Questions about their coaches' futures, their quarterbacks' presence, their wide receivers' attitudes, their defenses' sturdiness and their franchises' directions now are, rightly and fairly, debated. Oakland actually has a chance for a completely imperfect season -- 0-16.
The biggest hope the franchise has this year is that it will land another quality top-10 pick in the next draft. As if they haven't done that enough in recent seasons.
In the Bay Area, nothing is as it was. But then, nothing ever is.
This weekend, the Raiders and 49ers will square off to see which franchise, at this particular moment, is actually worse off. Once, it was a matchup that would have created all the buzz that Sunday's Cowboys-Eagles and Steelers-Chargers games are. No longer.
The Bay-Area football buzz has gone flat. This game is no more anticipated than a San Jose State-Stanford matchup. Poor California. Los Angeles is without a team, the Bay Area doesn't feel it has a worthy one, and were it not for the Chargers, the state would be an NFL wasteland.
Now, the Black Hole the Raiders used to claim as their own seemingly has devoured two Bay Area football franchises. The road back looks like San Francisco's Lombard Street -- long and winding.
http://www.nfl.com/nflnetwork/story/9707147
By Adam Schefter
NFL Analyst
Adam Schefter's "Around the League" reports and commentaries can be seen regularly on NFL Total Access.
(Oct. 5, 2006) -- Once -- and it doesn't seem that long ago -- the Raiders and 49ers each excelled in football the way both New York teams now do in baseball.
If John Madden wasn't driving Oakland to a championship, then Bill Walsh was doing it for San Francisco.
Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler was very good, but 49ers quarterback Joe Montana was simply the best.
When Fred Biletnikoff and Cliff Branch didn't compose one of the sport's most feared receiving tandems, then Jerry Rice and John Taylor did.
Raiders cornerback Lester Hayes made Stickem famous, while 49ers safety Ronnie Lott simply stuck it to 'em.
Oakland and San Francisco were pillars of pigskin power, with decorated pasts and hopeful futures. And then, it was as if someone more menacing than Albert Haynseworth stomped on the entire Bay Area, damaging each storied franchise's foundation.
How it all dissolved so quickly, and so oppressively, is startling and confounding. But now, the Raiders cannot win a game, and the 49ers struggle to do it.
Questions about their coaches' futures, their quarterbacks' presence, their wide receivers' attitudes, their defenses' sturdiness and their franchises' directions now are, rightly and fairly, debated. Oakland actually has a chance for a completely imperfect season -- 0-16.
The biggest hope the franchise has this year is that it will land another quality top-10 pick in the next draft. As if they haven't done that enough in recent seasons.
In the Bay Area, nothing is as it was. But then, nothing ever is.
This weekend, the Raiders and 49ers will square off to see which franchise, at this particular moment, is actually worse off. Once, it was a matchup that would have created all the buzz that Sunday's Cowboys-Eagles and Steelers-Chargers games are. No longer.
The Bay-Area football buzz has gone flat. This game is no more anticipated than a San Jose State-Stanford matchup. Poor California. Los Angeles is without a team, the Bay Area doesn't feel it has a worthy one, and were it not for the Chargers, the state would be an NFL wasteland.
Now, the Black Hole the Raiders used to claim as their own seemingly has devoured two Bay Area football franchises. The road back looks like San Francisco's Lombard Street -- long and winding.
http://www.nfl.com/nflnetwork/story/9707147