Sam Adams released ...

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RNorris

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I would think he would be worth a gamble if he decides to participate in mini camps to get into shape.
 
The last time Sam was with us we went to the Super Bowl.

Dude has a habit about doing that.

Sam "Big Poppa the Show Stoppa"...
 
I don't expect him to be the impact player he was during his last stint here but he certainly isn't going to command as much and would be a serviceable rotational guy with Terd.
 
Agreed. I'd be a lot more comfortable with Big Sam in the mix since Terde's ability to carry most of the load at his DT spot is questinable. I was all for drafting a big-ass DT, why not grab Sam to fill that role?
 
I dunno. Big fat guys don't tend to hold up too well with age. Minimum contract for a no-risk look-see in camp? Ok, sure.
 
Another beer, please

Turo said:
I dunno. Big fat guys don't tend to hold up too well with age.
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Which is why I was so very pleased to see Sapp lose 47 lbs. :)


Turo said:
Minimum contract for a no-risk look-see in camp? Ok, sure.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately Sam will draw interest from at least two teams. He was scheduled for 1.5 M this year and doubt he gets much less in the end. :)
 
The reason I'm not real interested is that it isn't like we're one veteran DT away from making a deep run into the playoffs.. so who gives a rip if we bring the guy in for a season and he plays even mediocre-to-good... doesn't matter at all unless he can stick around for at least 2-3 years, and that's when my reasonable-doubt-o-meter starts pegging into the red. I'd rather see us give some reps to our young kids and see if any of them come to the forefront as candidates for a serious starting role for the next 3-4 years.
 
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Turo said:
doesn't matter at all unless he can stick around for at least 2-3 years, and that's when my reasonable-doubt-o-meter starts pegging into the red.
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IN each of the past three years, two to three teams go from bottom feeding to the playoffs:

In 2006 it was the Jets (10-6) and New Orleans(10-6) (4-12 and 3-13 in 2005)
In 2005 it was The Redskins (10-6) and Chicago (11-5) (6-10 and 5-11 in 2004)
In 2004 it was the Titans, Chargers and Falcons (5-11, 4-12, 5-11 in 2003)

Why not the Raiders in 2008? If history teaches, then a few teams are going to do it and who else has made improvements to the breadth and totality that the Raiders did?

Here are the bottom feeders from 2006:

Miami 6 10
Cleveland 4
Houston 6 10
Oakland 2 14
Washington 5
Detroit 3 13
Tampa Bay 4
Arizona 5 11

If I had to pick two teams to make the playoffs next year I'd have to start with Arizona because of the weakness of the NFC West and their talent level. Wiz could likely make them 10-6.
Miami - meh. No QB yet and in the very tough AFC East.
Cleveland. No way
Houston (see Cleveland)
Washington - still no Qb and in a tough division
Tampa Bay - Too many QB's, but probably has the best shot of the turnaround
Oakland - Now I'm a homer, but the defense will improve and if we can make decent gains in ST and Offense we can win 10 games. We must win at least 3 games against the AFC West (one from the Dolts and 2 from KC?). We should take the Browns and Lions in week 1 & 3. Miami, Houston and the Titans are there to win and that would get us to 8-8. If you count on a loss in the Colts game and three losses in the AFC West, that means we need to split the other four games against: Jags, Packers, Vikings, and Bears. Seems reasonable to me!
 
Only that we've got the hardest strength of schedule in the NFL this year.. again.
 
Turo said:
Only that we've got the hardest strength of schedule in the NFL this year.. again.
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SOS is BS. we won't know if our schedule was tough until the end of it. Our #1 SOS is based on last year's teams - not the 2007 version. Free Agency, the draft and most of all, injuries, make and break teams every year (see the fluctuation above).

Raiders go 10-6. I'm sticking to it.
 
I do hope you're right. But this is the, what, 5th year in a row we've played either or both of the previous years' Superbowl teams. I KNOW it's all pre-planned years in advance.. yadda yadda.. it still sucks that we get stuck with these rough schedules seemingly every year.

And, I dunno man.. you look at the schedule we've got ahead of us and it's hard.. damned hard.. to objectively look at that and proclaim much better than 6-8 wins, depending on your level of optimism. Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to be the turn-around story of the year, and I concede that there is always the possibility of that happening.. but that's going to be a long, long shot to come through. I do think we'll have a winning record going into the bye week. So there's that. But, the second half of the season is just brutal.
 
Turo said:
I do hope you're right. But this is the, what, 5th year in a row we've played either or both of the previous years' Superbowl teams. I KNOW it's all pre-planned years in advance.. yadda yadda.. it still sucks that we get stuck with these rough schedules seemingly every year.

And, I dunno man.. you look at the schedule we've got ahead of us and it's hard.. damned hard.. to objectively look at that and proclaim much better than 6-8 wins, depending on your level of optimism. Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to be the turn-around story of the year, and I concede that there is always the possibility of that happening.. but that's going to be a long, long shot to come through. I do think we'll have a winning record going into the bye week. So there's that. But, the second half of the season is just brutal.
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I agree, it's a longshot but unless 2007 is a statistical anomaly, 25% of the last place finishers will make the playoffs and the odds of 4:1 are not too horribly large.
For a developing team, the schedule is set up pretty well. First four games have three of five weakest opponents, so we can gain confidence. Unfortunately though, we have two of our hardest away games in Denver and SD squeezed in as well.

Detroit
@Denver
Cleveland
@Miami
BYE

San Diego at home is brutal but the KC game is a win long overdue at home and does Tenn and Houston really scare anyone?

@San Diego
Kansas City
@Tennessee
Houston

How good is the NFC? We'll find out with Chicago (as well as how good our D is). Minnesota doesn't scare me though KC at home is a nightmare. The Denver game - we might be good enough at this point to win a big one at home.

Chicago
@Minnesota
@Kansas City
Denver

This is brutal here, but we should be playing better than if we would have hit this streak to start the season. Maybe we can squeak by Green Bay and take San Diego at the HOT to end the season, especially if they've already secured a playoff spot or are out of it.

@Green Bay
Indianapolis
@Jacksonville
San Diego

My hope is that by the time we get to the end of the schedule the team is gelling well and we can win some games. If we can push through the final games and get a spot, we'll be in good shape to take on playoff level talent.
 
The Pundits

Turo: FWIW Adam Schein agrees with you:

Al Davis deserves a lot of credit.

In the recent past, we have blistered the legendary Raiders owner with criticism for his head coach hires. And we've ripped him for not letting the Raiders coach choose his own staff.

Well, that's changed.

Vibrant, savvy, and young, Lane Kiffin is the perfect fit for Oakland.

Email him at [email protected]
http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/6813752?print=true
 
The Pundits

Turo: FWIW Adam Schein agrees with you:

Raiders finally on the right track: Al Davis deserves a lot of credit.
Adam Schein / Special to FOXSports.com
Posted: 4 hours ago

In the recent past, we have blistered the legendary Raiders owner with criticism for his head coach hires. And we've ripped him for not letting the Raiders coach choose his own staff.

Well, that's changed.

Vibrant, savvy, and young, Lane Kiffin is the perfect fit for Oakland.

We wrote that when Davis thought out of the box and hired him. We really believe it now.

After watching the Raiders work the war room brilliantly, to complement the players they picked up in free agency, we believe the ball is finally rolling in the right direction.

How's this for our first bold pick of the 2007 season?

The Raiders, for the first time since 2004, will actually win a game against AFC West foes.

Hey — that's a quantum leap in the right direction.

But seriously, with Kiffin's leadership, a strong defense, and playmakers on offense, I'm not ruling out six wins for this team.

Heck, I'm not ruling out Oakland finishing ahead of the Chiefs.

The energy is sky high in Oakland right now. The players are pumped up for the Kiffin era after the life was zapped out last season by Art Shell and Mr. Bed and Breakfast Tom Walsh.

We chatted up Raiders cornerback Nmamdi Asomugha last week. You could hear the optimism.

He likes the raw ability he saw from JaMarcus Russell.

But as a defender, there was one player that really caught his eye.

That would be quarterback Josh McCown, who is the ideal fit as 2007 starter for Kiffin and offensive coordinator Greg Knapp.

Asomugha said, "It's funny. You might not hear a lot on McCown because we took JaMarcus with the No. 1 overall pick. But if you ask the players about how McCown did and who showed up and wowed everyone at mini-camp, we're going to tell you it was Josh McCown."

Asomugha says he is 100 percent convinced this is going to be a breakout season for the second overall pick in the 2004 draft, tackle Robert Gallery.

"I think the offense will help Rob. Look at Rob under Norv Tuner. He was much better than he was last year. When you go back to something that looks more like what Norv did, something that actually features three-step drops, it really will help the offensive line out. Now he won't have to hold his blocks as long. Rob is a guy who won't make excuses and that's what I love about him, but I can make the excuses for him. Every year since he's been in the league, this guy has had a different coach or last year two different coaches at his position. He's been changing positions from right to left. This is Rob's year to show up and shut everyone up."

And imagine this concept — the coaches actually plan on playing Jerry Porter!

Asomugha told us, "Last year so much went on with Jerry and the coaching staff. There were a number of guys who weren't happy with the offense and Jerry voiced his opinion and from day 1 it wasn't a good fit last year for him and Art. Lane made him more of a focal point of the offense. That's good for Jerry. He needed to be assured he'll have a place. And Jerry has been excited ever since then."

I believe it is a major positive that Randy Moss is elsewhere. His negativity was infecting the club.


Too bad only 20 percent of my emails yesterday (over 1,000 of them) are like this. The other 80 percent think I'm an idiot.

Asomugha said, "You could say addition by subtraction because you don't want anyone here who doesn't want to be here. Randy didn't like the offense last year. And you didn't know how he was going to react to Lane's offense this year. It has its positives and its negatives and everyone just moves on."

Now Mike Williams just needs to get healthy. You don't make the club sitting in the tub.

And the biggest difference between Shell and Kiffin, according to Asomugha, is practice.

"Coach Kiffin has stressed so much competition since he's been here. We love it. It's not Coach saying, well I'm just a young coach and whoever was the starter last year starts this year. That's good. And we needed that. He's trying to build a team. He doesn't care what was there last year. He has guys who were starters fighting for jobs. He has guys from other teams, like Dominic Rhodes and Josh McCown, fighting. It has created a great practice atmosphere. Lane has taken advantage of his resources. He has said I am changing this around and this team is going to look how I want it to look. And we have bought in."

And that's important.

Warren Sapp lost weight and looks great.

Sack master Derrick Burgess, said to be unhappy with his contract, showed up at mini-camp.

You don't want to get nuts on predicting wins and losses in Oakland.

But finally, for the first time since Jon Gruden left, you feel good about the head coach.

And that doughnut in the win column against division foes, and that last place finish, likely won't happen again.

Email him at [email protected]
http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/6813752?print=true
 
I wouldn't pay the money he will want for 10-12 snaps a game...too heavy and long in the tooth.
 
You guys are probably correct that Sam Adams won't be returning to Oakland. Between money and his apparent preference for the East Coast, I really don't see it happending. Particularly for a team that is basically building up for "run" in 2008 & beyond.
 
I know it very early to ask this but if anyone gets a list of possible FA's next season i would love to take a look at it.
 
Thanks. Not exciting, but not terrible. The name on list that made me double take was Mr. Troy P... Can you imagine that? No way in hell the steelers let him go right? Faneca and Troy P.

Im guessing next years needs will be OL, DL, OLB, FS, RB, WR its a nice feeling to have one JaMarcus Russell waiting in the wings... new, but nice.
 
Troy P was meant to be a Raider but I doubt they let him go but with the austerity trip the Rooney's have been on lately, you never know. Troy P, Huff, Fabs and Aso. :eek:

I think outside of a DT and another outside backer, we're going to be in pretty good shape defensively. Offensively, every thing hinges on the OL. If our coaches can get these guys back on the good foot, we're only going to need a little tweaking here and there, maybe a RB and a wideout.
 
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