Some Oakland Raiders Core Practices for Consideration

What are the core practices for the Oakland Raiders on-field performance?

Next week, hundreds of educators and others will convene in Reston, Virginia to discuss, refine and design a list of core practices to improve the United States educational system.

A reasonable expectation is to raise similar issues in the performance standards of the Oakland Raiders.

For example, the educators will be looking at practices such as:

1. Attend to precision

2. Construct viable arguments

3. Make sense of complex situations and persevere in solving them.

4. Look for and make sense of situations. Identify patterns.

5. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

Similarly, as assessments and core practices are discussed in the Oakland Raider franchise, we need to take a good look at:

1. Precision in executing plays. How can the rate of completed passes be increased?

2. Viable arguments to explain and substantiate why players did what they did, and how they performed on a game by game basis.

3. The situation on the playing field is complex. It is the collective interaction of not just one man, but of many. Are the players making sense of the complex situations and are they persevering in solving them?

4. Are the players identifying patterns? Are the Oakland Raiders improving or breaking bad patterns?

5. Are the Oakland Raiders looking for and expressing (performing) regularity in repeated reasoning? In other words, if they confront similar situations are they using similar patterns to overcome those challenges?

All or some of these practices of assessing the situation on the playing field may be applicable. If so, let's make use of these core practices to prescribe new and improved practices to assure more victories.

Sports is an integral part of education in America. Since there is a mandate to improve education in America, there is, therefore, a mandate to improve everything that is a derivative of American education.

I believe professional football is an outgrowth of what was done in little league, high school, and college. What the Oakland Raiders are and how they perform may be a symptom of how we are performing in other areas.

If so, and if there is a connection, then the Oakland Raiders need to look at their core practices to attain their goal of excellence.

America, too, must continue to look at improving educational practices so that more people are beneficiaries of an effective and efficient system, designed to move more people toward victorious lives in America.

Can JaMarcus Russell iterate toward excellence on a game-by-game basis?

Can Tom Cable and others improve in prescribing winning strategies?

Can the publicly perceived style and leadership skills of Al Davis improve so that the franchise is free to move to a higher level of excellence?

Can the Oakland Raiders do it? Can America do it?

Time will tell.