The two weeks between the end of the preseason and Week 1 are a bad idea, and bad decisions tend to get made as everyone overthinks the start of the regular season.
It's just way too much time to get overly invested in tiny personnel moves, and everyone works themselves into a frenzy, thinking their waiver wire pickup is the steal of the season. It's like fantasy football, but for real.
With that all said, reader, this time is different.
The Raiders actually did it. They actually had the steal of the season, and no matter what "the scoreboard" says after their Week 1 game against the Chargers end, we can all take some solace in knowing that they already won. Tom Telesco's revenge tour begins NOW.
Raiders' latest waiver wire pick up is the perfect pre-Week 1 shenanigan
On Thursday the Raiders quietly weakened a division rival and claimed Chargers safety Thomas Harper off waivers this week, and the reviews are already in:
The Raiders have claimed S Thomas Harper off of waivers from the Chargers. This preseason:
— PFF Las Vegas Raiders (@PFF_Raiders) August 28, 2024
☠️ 77.0 PFF grade
☠️ 16 coverage snaps
☠️ 0 receiving yards allowed
☠️ 1 forced incompletion
☠️ 2 stops pic.twitter.com/XETLQj52K4
Feels a lot like the @Raiders stole a player the @Chargers were hoping to sneak through waivers in new defensive back Thomas Harper.
— Vincent Bonsignore (@VinnyBonsignore) August 29, 2024
And sure, you could point out that any player who's on waivers in the first place is probably not in the team's long-term plans and that there's not a huge chance that Harper contributes to the Raiders, either. But it'd also be lame to point that out.
Divisional rivalries don't have to contain nuance and balanced analysis if you don't want them to. No one's forcing you to have rational thoughts. For all we know, the Raiders just pulled off the best heist of the season, and considering it's the *Chargers* we're talking about here, I actually think there's a chance this is true.
Harper's gotta be a captain for Week 1. I don't even care if he gets elevated to the active gameday roster just for that one specific pregame moment at midfield, it's gotta happen. What is the point of doing this otherwise? If the Raiders are going to be the third-best team in the AFC West, they may as well lean into trolling the rest of the division while they're at it. The only thing stopping the Raiders is their own creative limits.
Maybe hiring Telesco wasn't such a bad idea after all.