I have to admit, I am enjoying the implosion of Jon Gruden. I loved him as a commentator but it was mostly because he was a manic ball of nonsense energy and I found him very entertaining in that way. I don’t even think he was that good as a commentator. He was just fun, because he was a complete nut. As a coach he seems less interesting because we don’t get as much screentime with the nutball.

Plus, the way he appears to be running the team is kind of baffling. So watching a team give this man 100$ million to run a team like it’s 1999 is hilarious. What’s even more hilarious is that his coaching style of getting teams ramped up to complete clearly works. For half a game.

The Raiders would be 3-0 if games ended at halftime. The Raiders before halftime look like a good team. The offense works. I was genuinely impressed by how they game out during the Rams game in week 1. They legitimately looked like the team to beat against someone we all expected to be a Super Bowl contender. The gameplan seemed modern or at least timeless in how they attacked the cutting edge Rams squad. Marshawn Lynch’s TD run was classic Beastmode. I was all ready to eat some crow. Then…well, the second half happened.

You can practically write the same script for the next two games. It’s like the entire team starts thinking about dead dogs at halftime because they can’t finish. The Rams game you could consider as just being outmatched by talent. The Broncos game maybe you could consider bad luck in some ways because with one missed XP that game didn’t go to overtime. But the Dolphins game this past weekend was just more of the same Raiders. The Dolphins are 3-0 but they are the least convincing 3-0 team you can imagine. They look…fine. They don’t look like they should be one of only a few teams to not lose yet. They scream second half of the season “fade into obscurity” to me.

Going 0-3 pretty much ends any hope for the playoffs, especially with the Chiefs on fire. This will be an interesting team to follow this year because either they’ll continue to collapse in hilarious fashion or they’ll finally start pulling it together and make some interesting games. Despite what I thought this team has some potential. I still don’t think Gruden is the guy to get them there though. Falling apart late in games feels like a coaching issue.

Man they sure could have used a stellar pass rusher in these games.