Oakland Raiders Win First Game, But What Does It Mean For The Season?

For the Oakland Raiders and the citizens of the Raider Nation, it was a nice change of pace to see a victory. The Raiders, after a punishing game against the Titans in Week 1, were hosting Sam Bradford and the Rams, who had lost their week one matchup with the Cards.

After a first half that saw several failed scoring attempts, a failed fourth down attempt and a miss by Sebastian Janikowski, Tom Cable made the call to replace Jason Campbell with Bruce Gradkowski at halftime.

The results never looked better. A 3-7 score was turned around and until a late touchdown by the Rams, the team led 16-7 for a good portion of the game. With the late touchdown, the Raiders needed a late game effort to keep the ball and burn up the clock, achieved by a number of plays.

But, once the game was done, the pundits instantly seemed to poke fun at it.

Are the Rams even in the NFL? The way people talk, they seem to compare to a high school football team… and they ALMOST beat the Raiders.

The way they are talking, you'd wonder if the NFL should take the win away from a great performance from Bruce Gradkowski, Darren McFadden, Louis Murphy and Darrius Heyward-Bey.

As it was, sure, the Raiders had a easy team on the schedule. Every team does. Does that make the Kansas City win over the Browns worthless? Or how about the Jaguars' destruction at the hands of the Chargers?

Right now the Raiders are 1-1. They have one more win than eight different clubs in the NFL, including two postseason favorites, the Vikings and the Cowboys.

For the irony, even the club that won last week, the Titans, looked pretty unsettled, replacing their own QB for Kerry Collins… and fell to the Steelers.

At 1-1, the Raiders are tied with nine other teams in the AFC, and a total of 17 teams have one win… tomorrow, if the 49ers can win, there will be one more.

It's a pretty crowded field, all across the NFL, at 1-1.

I'll take the win, and look forward, with hope to the Cards game next week.

On the terms of the QB question...it was nice to see the Raiders switch out QBs, and the results bore fruit. Takes a gutsy call to do that, this early in the season. Ironically, five teams did the same trick today...the Raiders were the only one to do it right, in getting the win.

On the other side of the coin, sure, playing and putting up yardage against a weaker team can be expected. But so can the momentum factor that teams thrive on. Teams need to break the losing streak, get the first one out of the way, and build on what works for the club.

Obviously, Bruce Gradkowski's mobility factor was working better than Jason's, who was sacked twice and tossed a late interception before the half.

If the Raiders can build on today's good points, win next week against another over-matched team in Arizona… maybe they can pursue those long dormant dreams that the Nation has been waiting seven long years for… a winning season.