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Despite being one of the most highly touted athletes in the draft, Darren McFadden hasn’t gotten a terrible amount of love from the media up until this point. His off the field issues and the theory that he’s strictly a north/south runner lead most people to peg him as an NFL bust before he got to take a snap.

Darren took the first leap in proving the critics wrong yesterday when he torched the Chiefs for 164 yards on 21 carries. His lateral movement has looked just fine in the first two games of the season so far, so I doubt that’s going to be an issue (besides, the Raiders run the zone blocking scheme that emphasizes one cut before running downhill).

He has to get his ball control issues fixed, but the thing that disappointed me is that he let Bernard Pollard run him down in the open field. If you’ve forgotten…Darren McFadden ran a 4.3 in the combine…. he isn’t supposed to let a stinkin safety run him down from behind in a footrace… thats unacceptable.

How the NFL keeps scheduling the Oakland Raiders to play the opening Monday Night Football game is beyond me. They’ve won 19 games in six years and amazingly show no signs of improvement as time passes by.

Last night, the entire country got to witness the Raiders get massacred on their own field by the Broncos (a team which is not that good). Let’s see how the high priced signings did last night:

Tommy Kelly - DT - 7 Year/$50.5 million contract
How did he do last night? 4 tackles, Denver rushed for 142 yds total.

DeAngelo Hall - CB - 7 year/$70 million contract
How did he do last night? Deangelo was ABUSED by Eddie Royal all night, absolutely embarrassed. Due to Royal catching every pass thrown to him, Hall had 7 tackles.

Javon Walker - WR - 6 year/$55 million contract
How did he do last night? Didn’t play due to a nagging injury, money well spent.

Gibril Wilson - SS - 6 year/$39 million contract
How did he do last night? Gave up an easy touchdown to Eddie Royal, adding to his 9 catch, 146 yard night. Wilson did have 11 tackles on the night, which says a lot about the Raiders inability to stop the pass.

Darren McFadden - RB - 6 year/$60 million contract
How did he do last night? 9 rushes, 46 yards. To his credit, McFadden looked pretty good last night and would have had a touchdown if Jamarcus Russell hadn’t fumbled the ball in the 1st quarter. McFadden’s lateral movement looked better than the critics give him credit for.

These are individual players who are VERY talented, but happen to be employed by an organization so dysfunctional and clueless, they can’t put together anything resembling a professional football team.

They make me embarrassed to be from Oakland.