Scott Gulbransen
There’s no questioning the 2018 Oakland Raiders are an awful football team. Their record dictates that but the continued negativity from fans and the media only create an unnecessary toxic environment.
It’s another week in the NFL which means the odds against Raider Nation seeing its beloved team win are high.
Yet, as our own Chris Reed wrote earlier this week, there are reasons for Raiders fans to believe in a bright future as the team heads toward its move to Las Vegas.
If you read national or Bay Area headlines, the end is near. It’s the apocalypse. Jon Gruden is a failure. Mark Davis is an idiot. The team will forever be terrible and they’ll never win a championship.
It’s getting pretty old but it’s easy to understand.
For Bay Area media, who has a wealth of talented reporters, it’s understandable. The Raiders are leaving and the relationship between the team and the press corps has been strained for a long time. Not between reporters and writers, but with the organization to be certain.
Also, their audience is mostly disgruntled Oakland fans who are losing their team. People are angry and they write for their audience. Toss in the fact many of those reporters aren’t sure what (or who) they will cover after this year, and it’s a perfect storm of negativity. To be fair: the Raiders have been an awful franchise for two decades. It’s hard to write even objectively positive stories when the team never succeeds.
With the construction of the Raiders Las Vegas Stadium moving along briskly, the future for the team in Las Vegas is bright.
For the national media, it’s all about the money. National media are obsessed with Gruden’s contract and unprecedented freedom in doing what he wants with the Raiders moving forward. You can’t watch a talking head or read a national writer without a mention of the financial terms. The national folks (including hosts on ESPN) have turned against Gruden because they simply can’t comprehend what he’s doing. With a majority of them being former athletes, it’s not in their wheelhouse to understand business strategy no matter how many millions they made playing football.
What’s unfortunate is no one is actually taking an approach to explore what could happen should Gruden’s strategy work. Because people are so focused on the short-term, they’re unable (and perhaps unwilling) to explore the strengths of the Raiders current position and how it may help as they head toward the 2019 offseason.
The bottom line for fans is this: either you believe it will work out or you don’t. You have faith or you don’t. That doesn’t mean there are any guarantees but there’s nothing fans can do but wait and see. If you’re feeding into the negativity, it’s only going to make you miserable.
I don’t blame fans who walk away with how things have gone – especially those in Oakland.
For those who remain steadfast members of Raider Nation, believe things will get better.
It’s really the only choice.
