Who’s better, 49ers or Raiders? I say Raiders
By John Ryan
Sunday, September 30th, 2007 at 4:09 pm in Raiders, 49ers, NFL.
I heard murmurs on this topic before the season started and chalked them up to hallucinogenic-mushroom-laced water in Raider Nation. But after four weeks, it’s a surprisingly legitimate question:
Are the Raiders better than the 49ers?
Right now, I’d say the answer is yes, and not just because it’s the First Place Oakland Raiders we’re talking about. But that’s part of it.
My thoughts:
Both teams are 2-2. But the Raiders have a head-turning win — today on the road in Miami, and yes Miami is horrible, but no worse than St. Louis, whom the 49ers beat only because Dante Hall dropped a punt and Jeff Wilkins’ range is a mere 55 yards. The Raiders dominated their road win. The 49ers backed into theirs.
Fun meaningless stat: The Raiders are plus-2 in point differential. The 49ers are minus-37.
The Raiders have been in every game. Specifically, they have been leading in the fourth quarter of every game. The 49ers have played two fourth quarters of JV slop ball.
The coaching edge goes to … the Raiders? Hey, it bowls me over too. But look at the first touchdown Daunte Culpepper ran in — that formation with one back offset to the right, it opened the whole middle up for a 250-pound man to scoot through. And look at the way Lane Kiffin is laying it down in the second half — his offensive line is knocking the crap out of the other team for entire drives for two weeks now. Even in Denver, LaMont Jordan was running all over the Broncos, and only Josh McCown’s brainlock (and Jano) kept them from winning.
Meanwhile, the 49ers are using game plans that wouldn’t be satisfactory at any NCAA Division I school in the country. Come to think of it, we know Lane can call plays in college at least, and we’re seeing it in the pros so far. Can we say anything even remotely close to that about Jim Hostler? This falls on Mike Nolan’s head, too.
The quarterback edge goes to … the Raiders? Maybe the 49ers can be one of those teams to try to trade for Josh McCown. The Raiders, I think they’ll be OK without him. I don’t know Alex Smith’s condition, but I’m not sure he makes them much better at 100 percent health. At least we know from today that he isn’t causing this pitiful wreck of an offense.
The defenses are close. I might even give the edge to Oakland. Yeah, they entered today ranked 27th in the league in yards, and I devoted a post to this earlier today debunking that myth. Last year, the Raiders ranked third. That was all based on the opposing offense tucking in the playbook in the second half. This year, the Raiders are making game-turning plays.
The 49ers’ defense, meanwhile, does that a little bit in the secondary. But it’s 1 for 4 in playing the run well this season.
The fire is there. In Oakland. The 49ers were playing their biggest game since Mooch left, and it looked and felt like the middle of August. The Raiders have been living on emotion for four weeks now.
It’s a much better look.