Nnamdi Asomugha: What He Meant to Me, an Oakland Raiders' Fan

When Nnamdi Asomugha officially left the Raiders a few weeks ago, I had to stop and collect myself. This team has been a huge part of my life for so long, and an era had just ended.

Asomugha was indeed my favorite player for that past 10 years, and that started when he was at the University of California. When he was playing safety there, I watched him many times from the stands, and knew he was going to be something special when he went to the NFL. 

Then, after watching him for years playing for the Bears, he was drafted by my Raiders. This was a dream scenario for me and a lot of people living in the East Bay. 

When news got out that they were going to move him to corner, I alright with that because he had all the tools someone needs to play at that position. Besides, the Raiders are the best cornerback team in the league, right?

I was stoked to watch him grow into his role as a cornerback, and I knew he would be great. 

As time went on, I watched for his arrival, and it came in the most inopportune time for a Raiders fan in 2006. 

That year was hard to watch, but nonetheless, I watched every game that year, and the only bright spot was Asomugha. He had arrived, and he arrived with a bang. 

A lot of people thought that the season was a fluke as he had never had an interception before then, but I knew he had been close, and after that first one, he was more dominant than any other cornerback in the league.

As the years went on, I grew more and more fond of Asomugha. His demeanor was great when the team was loosing, and he was one of the most articulate corner backs I had ever seen. Also, with cornerback being my favorite position on the field, he quickly became my favorite football player ever. 

Then in recent years, ever since he got his first pro-bowl invitation (which I literally celebrated), the talk of him moving on started to swirl, and I knew that we'd already been through this when Charles Woodson did the same a few years earlier.

Every year, it seemed inevitable that he was going to be gone, but every year Al Davis managed to bring him back, until they made the biggest mistake in franchise history.

The clause that made him a free agent was the most ludicrous thing I had ever heard of, and my opinion of Mr. Davis was at an all-time low. 

There was one thing lingering among all of this terrible news which was the NFL lockout. This guaranteed, that he would be gone, as he would have more than enough time to weigh his options, and the Raiders' situation just wasn't that good (decent, but not great).

The lockout dragged along, and I began to think about all the great moments in Asomugha's tenure in Oakland that I had witnessed, the great man coverage the the Raiders are known for, he perfected it more than I have ever seen in my life. 

The rest of the story, you no doubt know, but there is something that you don't know about it that affects me more than you'd think.

Asomugha was a gleaming light in a city with a dark future. He was the biggest star, not only on the Raiders' squad, but in the entire East Bay. He was my role model during high school, and gave me the incentive to get through school. 

Now that he is gone, no more will I have a fantastic football player and man to look forward to watching play on Sundays. No more will I have to mute the TV because of the Madden announcers pronouncing his name AUS-OH-MOO-GAH. No longer will I be able to say, "No way will he ever leave Oakland, this is his home. He wants to be here when the team turns around, to say that he stuck through it until the end."

Nope, all I can say now, is we had two of the top corner backs in the NFL on our team twice in our storied franchise's history and we lost them both.