To begin, we all know that the Raiders march to the beat of whatever drum gets Mr. Davis out of bed every morning. With the deadline looming for NFL teams to be down to the required 53-man roster all was quiet on the Oakland front. Small morsels trickled out to a hungry Raider Nation eager to learn just who they’d be cheering for in 2011.

The first to rumors were that both Walter McFadden and Lito Sheppard didn’t make the squad. McFadden’s release was shocking only in how long it took. It was pretty clear early on in his Raider days that his talents just didn’t translate to the NFL. At least not in the Raiders’ man-intensive scheme.

But that was just the beginning.
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Despite being without its top three wide receivers and missing the services of both Zach Miller and his replacement Kevin Boss the Oakland offense has looked good enough to compete with the NFL elite. At least that should be the case once the best weapon in football returns (Darren McFadden, of course).

As for the defense…let’s just say that losing Chris Johnson, Hiram Eugene, Mike Mitchell and Travis Goethel can’t be an acceptable excuse for such poor showings. Not a single one of those men has been a difference maker during their NFL days. We’ll give Johnson the second half of the ’08 season when he made DeAngelo Hall expendable as the lone exception.

Al Davis committed a lot of money to his defense. Too bad all of that money went to the same men that were part of the same underachieving unit that yielded big plays and big point totals at inopportune times.

Still unable to stop the run now the defense has a new dilemma – they can’t defend the pass either.
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Here is your snapshot of this game: At halftime the Raiders and 49ers combined for as many points as turnovers (3)

The Niners overcame a comedy of special teams errors to send Oakland to 0-2 in the preseason thanks to a listless 17-3 loss.

So far during Hue Jackson’s bully construction he seems to have forgotten about his tools to reconstruct last season’s offense. Injuries play a hand in how out of sync Oakland’s O’s is but that excuse along with preseason jitters is getting old already.

To be sure there were a few flashes from the up and coming Silver and Black talent that’s got to make Al Davis feel vindicated. But overall this team as a whole is still looking very listless with only two more tune-ups left.

Jobs are on the line. Time is running short. Injuries are becoming more troubling. Strap yourself in tight Nation, this is looking like a bumpy ride. Here are my game notes for take two of Coach Jackson’s directorial debut

- The Red Zone is still a dead zone for Oakland. Jason Campbell is the symbol of Oakland’s out of sync offense. At this point play-action is the only thing that works. His receivers (including Darrius Heyward-Bey) are bailing out his bad throws. Plus he’s still gun shy, doing the sensible yet maddening thing by playing it safe and not throwing across his body when Kevin Boss is more open than a Denny’s next to a bar at 2:00am on a Saturday morning.

- Campbell’s performance is not his only issue as JC went down late in the first half with what we hope is not a head or neck injury of the serious or mandatory inactivity variety.

- If JC is in danger of missing time Trent Edwards did himself no favors with his few token snaps in the first half. His what were you thinking INT was an underthrown toss into double coverage. Kyle Boller started after halftime and took every snap in the second half. At this point the QB position is pretty irrelevant. Just One TD in two games.
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