The Draw Play

This comic was supposed to be making fun of the name Easton Stick, but as I was working on it, I witnessed the funniest game of the season on my monitor.

Raiders/Chargers is already a lock for chaos of the week. I don’t see how anything tops that game. When the Chargers fumbled the second time, I moaned. Oh my god, really? The Raiders went up 14 – 0. When they fumbled the THIRD time I gasped and made such a strange involuntary noise my wife came into my office asking what on earth was wrong. When the fat guy touchdown happened, I almost pratfalled when I stood up too fast gaping in surprise and my computer chair hit the side of the desk and tripped me. When the incredible pick 6 happened about 2 real-time minutes later, I screamed.

This was more embarassing than the Dolphins/Denver game. The Dolphins were a good team, and the offense was just operating on a different wavelength than Vance Joseph’s defense. This game was worse. The Raiders are a bad team. Gutted from 2 years of Josh McDaniels, starting a 5th round QB who looks like Farva from Supertroopers. The Raiders scored literally zero points less than a week ago against the Vikings. They scored 49 points before the Chargers managed to get a single point. This was a Murphy’s Law game.

If anything gets Brandon Staley fired before the season ends, it’s this. Staley should have been gone after last year’s playoff debacle. He should have been gone at or before Josh McDaniels. But Spanos is a cheap shit, and I knew he’d last the whole year. I don’t know anymore. By the time you read this on Friday morning, he might already be fired. He came to Los Angeles as a defensive guru and his team let the woeful Raiders drop 63 points on them. The Chargers were pathetic. They looked absolutely unprepared and hopeless. That’s a coaching problem. Staley doesn’t have the luxury of being early in his contract with plenty of season to turn things around like the Broncos did. This is it. He toast.

Early on the TNF graphics team literally put together a short bit about Chargering so any one of you who wants to say they never heard of it can’t say that anymore. The Staley era has several games that could represent his tenure here. Is this the one that best shows who Brandon Staley is? I think the playoff loss to Jacksonville fits better. This one is a representation of what happens when your team just gives up on you. When absolutely nobody respects you. Justin Herbert misses one game and now I think he has a legitimate argument for MVP. Certainly wasn’t Staley holding this team together.

Usually, former head coaches go back and find a coordinator job. I’d be surprised if Staley gets anything higher than a low-tier positional gig next year, like a defensive backs coach somewhere. Ideally, he should be left in the catacombs of Paris without supplies, left to wander the endless darkness, surrounded by the specters of death that shall soon take him.

EDIT: He gone!