The Oakland Raiders are to blame for the burgeoning swine flu pandemic. Those horrific business practices of Al Davis have ultimately led to the disbanding of the major U.S. automakers. That’s right! All of the world’s problems can be traced directly to the door step of Al Davis and his cohort Tom Cable.

Exhibit A: The Raiders selecting Darrius Heyward-Bey over Michael Crabtree

ESPN’s draft coverage missed the moment when Al Davis and Tom Cable each took turns using Mel Kiper’s mock draft as toilet paper. Never one to do what is best for his franchise, Mr. Davis decided that it just didn’t make too much sense to listen to a TV analyst and instead decided to lean on paid professionals to properly evaluate talent. How could he?

Shame on Mr. Davis for thinking he knows more than Mel Kiper! At this point in time, I’m not even sure why we still hold a draft. Wouldn’t the NFL be a better league if we just got rid of the draft and allowed Kiper to pick for every team? I’m sure his decisions have led to more Lombari trophies than those made by Al Davis.

After all, every fan out there can’t spend much time evaluating talent, right? The average fan is just too busy with, well, life. Therefore, Mel Kiper becomes the mouth piece for the layman. What he says goes and anyone who opposes is a draft neophyte void of rational decision making.

Al Davis should be ashamed for not considering Michael Crabtree’s stats and his two Biletnikoff trophies before making his decision to pass on the Texas Teach star receiver for Heyward-Bey.  As we all know, putting up huge stats in division one college football is a sure fire way to tell if a player will be productive in the NFL. That is why the best quarterbacks in the modern game are being cranked out of Texas Tech.

Why, the list of Biletnikoff winners alone is enough to make one believe that every recipient is a lock to be in Canton. After all, Bobby Engram, Marcus Harris, Troy Edwards, Troy Walters, Josh Reed, Charles Rogers and Mike Haas have all gone onto great NFL careers.

Head coach Tom Cable clearly has no idea what it takes to be successful in the NFL. While defending the selections of Heyward-Bey and second round choice Michael Mitchell, Cable made it clear that his players must have talent (of course) but they must also be hard workers and dedicated teammates. Who thinks this way?

You can’t build a winner with quality character guys! What fools Davis and Cable have revealed themselves to be!

What angered most on draft day was that Davis and Cable announced themselves as the smartest guys in the room by ignoring what the consensus proclaimed. They should have been more like the Philadelphia Eagles in round one. When it was Andy Reid’s turn to pick, he simply turned to Mel Kiper and looked at his big board. Hello Jeremy Maclin. Never mind that DeSean Jackson is the same player, Mel says to draft Maclin.

The popular theory is that all Mr. Davis did was look at 40 times. He never considered that Heyward-Bey might become the next version of Terrell Owens, minus the prima donna, Michael Crabtree-like attitude. No, Mr. Davis simply decided that speed means more than anything else.

Team speed is, after all, the Raider philosophy. Every team has a philosophy. Jerry Jones likes knuckle heads. Ralph Wilson likes mediocrity. Bill Belichick likes cheaters. Al Davis likes speed. 

The whole world knows that Al Davis can’t possibly have a clue when it comes to evaluating receivers. That’s why he waited more than 20 years to pick another receiver in round one of the NFL draft. The last stiff Davis picked in the first round was, of course, a speed demon from Notre Dame named Tim Brown. What a scrub that Tim Brown was.

If ridicule is truly the burden of genius, then Al Davis must be Albert Einstein. Time will tell if Darrius Heyward-Bey can find a vaccine for the swine flu. As of now, Al Davis will just have to keep those three Lombardi trophies hidden from plain sight. Should Mel Kiper find out that Mr. Davis has actually had success in the NFL, it could ruin the good name of the Oakland Raiders.

My heart broke in two for the faithful supporters of such storied franchises. I hate to see true fans have their loyalty treated like Marcellus Wallace as their front office plays the role of the Gimp.

Necessity makes for some strange bed fellows, I suppose.

The greatest used car salesman of our generation, Drew Rosenhaus, has duped one of the great owners in the history of sports, Ralph Wilson.

Rosenhaus told the world his client was being pursued by “multiple teams”. Now that his client has signed a one year deal with a team that finished last in its division, we know that those other teams must have been the Toronto Argonauts and the Frankfurt Galaxy.

As I write this, Bills fans are making their peace with the fact that Terrell Owens will be playing within a dropped balls’ reach of the hallowed “Wall of Fame“.

O.J. Simpson, James Lofton, Bruce Smith, Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Terrell Owens.

Suddenly O.J. looks more inviting than T.O.

Ralph Wilson is caught between a rock and an economic crisis. He wants to win first, but needs to assure fans in Upstate New York that they’ll have professional football for generations to come.

T.O. will increase ticket sales, no doubt. The price of popcorn just doubled in Orchard Park. 

Since he only has a one-year deal, I’m willing to bet that Owens will keep his mouth shut and play ball in 2009.

Make no mistake though; T.O. is in Buffalo for T.O.’s wallet just like Brett Favre was in New York for Brett Favre’s legacy and nothing else. Owens knows that having a monster season in 2009 will equal more dollars in 2010. 

During his introductory press conference, Owens was asked what his locker room demeanor would be like.

His response?

“I’m going to be the same person here that I was in Dallas the last three years.”

Ouch!

That “same person” went from being a ticket to the Super Bowl to excess baggage in three years in Dallas.

Make no mistake – as a Raider fan – I let out a huge sigh of relief when I saw Owens sporting a Bills cap. That doesn’t mean that I don’t feel bad for the good fans in Buffalo.

In the modern NFL, anything is possible.

Let’s be honest though. The arrival of a diminished Owens is not going to tip the scales of power in the top heavy AFC.

Trent Edwards is still Trent Edwards. He is not going to undergo some Kafkaesque metamorphosis over night and become Peyton Manning now that he has a diva demanding the ball as his teammate.

My Raiders don’t play the Bills in 2009 and unless fate brings us together in the playoffs, I’ll root for your team every week because you deserve better than Terrell Owens.