Today is September 5th, 2019, and I am an Oakland Raiders fan. Barring the most unlikely playoff run in the history of sports, after December 29th, 2019, I will no longer be an Oakland Raiders fan. That is because after that day, the Oakland Raiders will no longer exist. I have zero interest in following the Las Vegas Raiders for the same reason I have zero interest in the lives of any of my ex girlfriends. It's over. It's done. It's dead. The Raiders I have known and loved will be dead, replaced with a glossy, soulless replicant. The Raider Nation I love will be replaced with unsuspecting casino guests who were comped tickets to The House the Taxpayers of Nevada Built. The parking lot tailgate parties filled with clouds of BBQ and weed smoke will be replaced by $25 craft beers and farm-to-fork raised Cornish game hen served with risotto and seared scallops. It will have the Raiders name attached to it, but it will not be the real thing. And as such, I will have no part of it.
I know what you're thinking. "What makes this different from when they moved to LA?" Everything, man. Everything is different about this. For one, they're leaving California. I'm not proud of much, but for whatever reason I have long been filled with Nor Cal pride. I don't know why. I just am. And to abandon Oakland, a wild and wonderful and decidedly REAL place for the prefabbed land of garbage that is Las Vegas, well, nah. It's not for me.
Secondly, there is the fact that the Raiders have been decidedly bad for nearly my entire life. Since 1977 the Raiders are 327-344. They won 2 Super Bowls in that time, one when I was 3 and had no idea what football was and one when I was 6 that I can hardly remember. Again, I know what you're thinking. "You dick! My team has NEVER won a Super Bowl!" Welp, I don't know what to tell you. Let's just say that I have a ton of memories of guys like Jay Schroeder and Donald Hollas ruining my Sundays. That sort of thing adds up over the decades and it takes a toll. Eventually, you reach a point where you have to decide if the bad decisions, the bad draft picks and the just general ineptitude of the franchise is worth dealing with any more. All of this is something I can at least deal with when the Raiders are an hour and a half hour drive away from me. Take them out of state? Forget it, man.
And the third reason I'm bailing after this year is that the last 2 times this team left they had Al Davis at the helm. For better or worse, Al was what he was. Before his brain turned to pudding, he was a genius. When it came to relocating his team, he knew what he was doing. Unfortunately, Al ran the team into the ground and as a parting shot he left the team in the potato chip grease covered hands of his failson, Mark. I don't say this lightly or as a figure of speech: I hate Mark Davis. I absolutely HATE him. I hate his stupid face. I hate his haircut. I hate his minivan. I hate everything about him. I wish him naught but ill. When Al died, I had conflicting feelings. There will be no conflict when Mark buys the farm. I'll laugh. I'll drink. I'll celebrate. The irony of the whole thing is that Mark is so dumb that I have no doubt that within his first 3 years in Vegas he will have somehow lost control of the team, probably through some sort of easily detected grift that someone with a functional brain could've spotted. Ponzi scheme, Nigerian scammers, nothing is off the table.
I used to write for a blog called Reggie Roby. We named it after him because he was cool as hell. He was a black dude who wore a watch during games and played a decidedly white position and played it better than damn near everyone. In that spirit, I'm naming this blog after Marquette King. Dude was really good and had the sheer audacity to have fun playing football and got run out of the league. Let this blog be the last will and testament of Raiders fandom. Each week I will share the unraveling of my allegiance to the Silver and Black and how it is affecting me. I will complain about Greg Olson's play calling. I will bemoan Derek Carr's choice to use thoughts and prayers to get Antonio Brown to not be a dumb ass when Snake or Plunkett would've just punched him in the face. I'll make jokes. I'll swear. A lot, I imagine. And when the final gun sounds, I'll take all my Raiders gear and toss it in a box and throw it in the garage, never to be seen again. Yeah, my garage is that bad. Come along with me on this ride and enjoy my descent into insanity.
