Sports Have Never Brought Me Joy

I have never really understood faith. Couldn’t ever really trust it. Just doesn’t feel right to have a belief in something based on conviction over proof. So when it comes to religious matters, I am a bit of a cynical curmudgeon. Prefer my science to my bible. My Darwin to my Jesus.

But like I do every September, I am taking inventory of a part of my life where I do have faith. A part of my life where even after repeated disappoint and failure, I go back looking for more pain and suffering. A part of my life, that has never brought me joy, but one that I look to with a naive stupid faith- that maybe this is our year. That maybe this is the year that the Oakland Raiders will bring me joy, some fate glimpse at salvation.

There is nothing that should give me a hint that the Oakland Raiders will be anything but a laughing stock again this year. I have written ad nausea how often they have tested this faith. It is so hard to be devoted to a team that are ridiculed on every sports talk show I watch. They’re hated by almost everyone and derided by the very press that should have some kind of allegiance to the hometown team. They literally and figuratively just can’t win no matter what decisions they make.

To be a Raider fan is to be a glutton for punishment. It is to sit hopeful on the cusp of what could potential be another losing season in a litany of losing seasons. And to add insult to injury this is the last season where the good people of Oakland can pledge their undying allegiance to a team that has brought them nothing but pain with no sign of succour in sight.

But like other people of faith worldwide, we sit hopeful on the eve of the first game- a Monday night affair at home against a vile and hated rival in the division. The stakes are already at play-off pitch. To start the season 0-1 and the rest of the the division at 1-0 and the Chiefs next week, would make  useless all the hours I have spent reading up on players, following the draft, listening to sports talk repeatedly say how useless our coach is, how inept our owner is, how worthless our time. To start 0-1 would be a hole to deep to dig out of so early in an season not yet born.

But what if…this young team with 12 starting rookies actually is faster and better than any team we have had in a while. What if the lunatics Gruden brought in like Burfect and Igonito really have matured and are leaders in the locker room, what if our three first round picks are the foundation for the future and we weren’t idiots to trade away Khalil Mack, what if Gruden and Mayock, despite the circus that Antonio Brown brought to town have built a culture of winning, or at least not one of humiliating defeat, what if our quarterback, who is on the cusp of being run off the team, gets the message and stops hearing footsteps, stays standing and actually wins some games?

That's a lot of what ifs, I know. But what is faith if not confidence and trust in a system?

We have the hardest schedule in the league. (Five straight away games) We travel the most miles, one game in London. The AFC West is made up of two potential Superbowl contenders with the Chiefs and Chargers, and nobody, I mean nobody, thinks we will be anything but embarrassing.

But like Job, perhaps we are just being tested. Maybe this twenty year humiliation in the desert of disappointment is just a test and as soon as we cross the river Jordan we hall be freed. Pretty I mixed up a bunch of bible stories, but you get the point.

Nobody but the faithful in Raider Nation can make this journey yet again. Because in the end, on the brink of a 16 game season, a season that we have been waiting for since last December, what else can we do, but pour our devotion and undoubting faith into the only team we have ever loved.

Win or lose, this is our team. We want to watch the players we have learned to love play under the lights in one of the oldest most rundown stadiums in the country.

It all really does seem kind of old testament biblical if you look at it right. Maybe I do believe in faith after all. How could you not being an Oakland Raiders fan? Just Win Baby!