Season in Review

After the massive flame out performed by the 2011 Oakland Raiders, its time once again to examine the season to figure out what went wrong.

WINS! - The most surprising part of this is beating Houston when they still had Schaub. Truth be told though they were fueled by the death of Al Davis and were going to lose until Schaub threw an awful pick in the end zone to end the game.

EXCUSABLE LOSES: New England, Green Bay, Kansas City. Kansas City gets included because it was the first game of the Kyle Boller era, the start of the Carson Palmer on 4 days practice era and the McFadden gets hurt 3 plays into the game and disappears for the season. Perfect combination for an apocalypse.

INEXCUSABLE LOSES:

Buffalo 38-35. The emergence of Denarious Moore and a huge day for Jason Campbell couldn't prevent the awful Bresnahan defense from letting the Bills rally for the late win with a pathetic prevent defense effort. Seeing how bad the Bills turned out this one looks even worse.

Denver 38-24. Raiders were leading 24-14 before Willis McGahee and Tebow ran for 899 yds. in the second half to score 24 unanswered points.

Miami 34-14. For the second year in a row the Dolphins shred a Raiders defense that appeared not care one bit.

Detroit 28-27. After doing a good job on Calvin Johnson most of the day, Bresnahan decides to run a prevent defense that allowed Rolando McClain and free agent street signee Matt Giordano to cover Johnson on a sickenly easy and predictable game winning drive.

San Diego 38-26. With a chance to win the division the defense and special teams get shredded by the Chargers who were coming off a 28 point slaughtering by the Lions, wasting a great day by the offense.

The trend is clear. In 4 of these losses the team scored 24 or more points and had the lead. Say what you will about the Palmer interception-palooza but he didn't let the Broncos score 38 points. The same Broncos that lost 7-3 to the Chiefs on Sunday. This should come as no surprise to anyone. Bresnahan was terrible the first time he was in Oakland and he's terrible now.

ANY HOPE? There is some hope going forward in 2012, notably the injuries. When the Raiders fell apart is was coincidentally the same time Darren McFadden. Jacoby Ford, Denarious Moore and Taiwan Jones went out injured. Combine that with a new quarterback trying to learn on the fly and the offense was surprisingly competent. Another promising aspect is that the team is very young and has room to improve without adding personnel. At least on offense.

SPEAKING OF - At first the trade for Carson Palmer seemed ludicrous. But in a league that has Tavaris Jackson, John Skelton, Kevin Kolb, Tim Tebow, Kyle Orton, Matt Moore, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Colt McCoy, Tyler Palko, Charlie Batch, Mark Sanchez, Chad Henne throwing the ball, Carson Palmer seems damn near above average. Not worth a 1 and a 2 but way better than anyone on that list or Kyle Boller.

OFFSEASON GAME PLAN:

1. Fire Bresnahan, get a real defensive coordinator. Poor play on D was the single most glaring aspect of the team. Mostly in the secondary, especially safety.

2. Re-sign Michael Bush. McFadden is too fragile to be counted on for a full season.

3. With no draft picks it might be worth while to see what McFadden and Richard Seymour can get on the trade market.

4. No Samson Satele. Horrible run blocker. Team did much better with Wiz at center and someone else at guard.

5. Reward the fans. The fans sold out all 8 home games this year and were rewarded with 3 division losses and a heartbreaker to the Lions. Not a good way to sell those tickets.