Richard Seymour proves the Raiders’ team facility has become an asylum

Where the crazy people go play. Photo from Flickr user scotrail.

Al Davis has been crazy for years, and the overhead-projector-aided rambling press conference about Lane Kiffin only solidified that the owner is lucid enough to still be nuts. Then JaMarcus Russell proved he’s delusional by saying he was fine with his awful passing performance this year.

Well there must be something in the water, because now Richard Seymour has lost his damn mind, too.


The defensive end was on a Cincinnati radio show Wednesday (who the hell knows why he’s on a show in Cincinnati when the Raiders play New York this week), and he boldly proclaimed that the Raiders will make the playoffs. Not in 2015, or even next year – he expects to playing in January this season.

"You can mark it down,” he told Bengals home station 1530 the Homer. “The Raiders will be in the playoffs in 2009.”

Now there was an extremely good-looking and intelligent blogger who predicted this same thing before the season started (cough, me, cough), but that was before we witnessed the complete regression of Russell and the beat-downs issued by the Texans, Giants and Broncos. The Silver and Black miraculously beat the Eagles 13-9 on Sunday (which pretty much made my week), but you have to call it an aberration until they can repeat the performance.

And that’s not to say the performance was particularly impressive – because it wasn’t. The offense was still terrible, and the Raiders had to punt twice in the fourth quarter when a long drive could have put the game away. The defense did play very well, mostly due to the blitz packages the team suddenly implemented. Oakland has consistently been a team that doesn’t blitz much, but linebackers, safeties and even cornerbacks were flying towards Donovan McNabb on Sunday. Did Mr. Davis approve of the change in plans? Who knows. But I can’t imagine he wouldn’t want to see it again after his precious Raiders actually won a game.

But let’s humor Seymour – after all, he’s already contributed four sacks this year, so it’s the least I can do. Is his dream actually possible?

Currently, the AFC West appears not to be a winnable division. Although the heavily overrated Chargers are struggling (as I predicted they would), the Denver Broncos have surprisingly become formidable contenders. Denver is sitting at 6-0, which is probably going to be an insurmountable lead for the 2-4 Raiders to overcome.

The good news for the delusional is that no second-place teams in the AFC have started out as hot as Denver. Only one non-division leader has a record better than 3-3 (the 4-2 Pittsburgh Steelers), so a Wild Card berth is not entirely out of the realm of possibility.

Oakland has some very winnable games left, starting with this week against a reeling Jets team. The Raiders could also beat division foes San Diego and Kansas City, and the pathetic Washington Redskins and Cleveland Browns.

If Oakland could manage all that (a very, very big IF), it would only put the Raiders at seven wins, and they’re not likely to get to the playoffs with less than nine. So they’d have to win two of the games against Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Denver, Dallas or Baltimore. Those teams have a combined record of 20-9.

The suffering Raider Nation really deserves the respectability a return to the playoffs would bring, but it’s not a realistic goal. If Seymour re-signs in the offseason and Oakland can get some help on the offensive line, we can talk about the playoffs next year. It may be the last chance for us to see the Oakland Raiders make a Super Bowl run.