Ok now, put away your torches and pitchforks and halt your march to the NFL’s schedule makers’ domain and hear me out for a second.
The Raiders not appearing in ANY primetime games this coming season for the first time since 2010 (barring any flexing), let alone being skipped over for an international game for the seventh straight season (the longest such streak in the NFL), is nasty work.
Insulting. Disrespectful, even.
Maybe, just maybe, it’s for the best…for now.
The Raiders, after all, are a franchise hitting the reset button. A team that tied for the worst record in the NFL at 3-14 and earned the No. 1 overall draft pick. So perhaps it’s best for the Raiders to lay low, fly under the radar while they get their bearing about themselves with the natural rhythm of a Sunday-to-Sunday beat.
Shouldn’t national champ/Heisman Trophy winner/top pick Fernando Mendoza warrant a looksie with the entire country watching?
And therein lies the conundrum, which we’ll dive deeper into in a bit.
For now though, it was written in this space last year (and probably will be in the future as well) that the NFL has done a “masterful” job in making the schedule release an event all on its own. Christmas and your birthday with a dash of Seinfeld’s Festivus. Because, really, which NFL fan doesn’t have a grievance, or 10, to unload on behalf of their favorite team in the wake of the schedule being dropped?
Welp, said complaints landed on the doorstep of Silver and Blackdom with a thud.
Two of the first three games, and three of the first five, on the road.
Four of five on the road in November, including likely-by-then cold weather climes in Denver and Cleveland.
An extremely late bye, in Week 13, or Dec. 6, after having byes in Weeks 8 and 10 the previous two seasons is another aha moment (the bye was in Week 13 in 2023).
The Raiders do have a stretch of three straight homes games in December, but close out with a pair of roadies, in Arizona and sure-to-be-freezing Kansas City.
And while the Kevins and Karens of Raider Nation would like to speak to the schedule-making manager, I, too, have some thoughts…
