http://www.yardbarker.com/content/player/2496 Recent articles about Tommy Kelly en-us It's very encouraging to hear such a positive report from Raider training camp. J-rock seems to have made significant strides and is impressing observers. Bring the noise! Sat, 26 Jul 2008 01:43:39 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/295936 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/295936 Apparently, the defense is ahead of the offense at this stage of the offseason. Multiple sources report that the Raiders offense fumbled the ball six times in one day of camp. Considering the Raiders have been close to the bottom of the league in forcing fumbles the past few years, this is either a very good or very bad omen. Fri, 25 Jul 2008 23:28:27 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/295908 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/295908 The reports out of training camp are aglow that the Oakland Raiders are off to a good start. Everyone not named LaMont Jordan has reported to camp and is working. The players coming off of injuries are on the mend. Lane Kiffin is now in his element getting the team ready to play some football. This Oakland Raider team looks on paper to be much improved from the previous incarnations. Its easy to look at the schedule and think of the possibility of playoffs. However, the specter of all the offseason drama lingers. The pieces are in place to have a good team, but it is also a chemistry experiment, and if it goes off the rails it will be ugly. Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:54:46 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/295678 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/295678 Training camp opened today, if this was baseball, it would be time for a long winded essay by George Will as read by Bob Costas about hope springing eternal and all those other cliches that are part of Americana. This is football, however, and instead of waxing poetically about new beginnings the Raider Nation is preparing their spikes and face paint to get hyped. So far, there is good news in that there have been no holdouts, and the only no-show is LaMont Jordan who is on the slow boat to anywhere else. Kiffin spoke to the media today and the overall feeling is that the Raiders are going to be ready to have a much better season than the last several. Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:18:07 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/295150 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/295150 Here is a partial transcript of Raider's Head Coach Lane Kiffin's pre-camp press conference. He looks poised and confident. You get the impression he thinks he has enough talent to make some noise in the AFC West this up-coming season. Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:14:52 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/295120 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/295120 This has been a tumultuous offseason for the Raider Nation. First there was the ongoing saga of whether or not Al Davis and Lane Kiffin were playing a game of dare to see whether Kiffin would quit, be fired, or coach for the 2008 season. Nnamdi Asomugha was given the franchise tag, and then free agents were signed fast and furious to huge contracts. Meanwhile, there was not motion on locking down Asomugha long term. Chronic malcontent Jerry Porter was jettisoned, but fellow chronic malcontent LaMont Jordan remains. What the duce is going on inside that building on Harbor Bay Parkway? Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:55:22 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/291493 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/291493 How to Spot A Fantasy Football Sleeper is a knack that could make or break your fantasy team. Daniel Kalles gives all you fantasy owners a "How To" locate and find fantasy sleepers and plenty of time to exam the players you feel could be sleepers this season. Best of luck this season. As Daniel Kalles, The first thing you need to know about finding a "sleeper" is figuring out what a sleeper is. Many people will have many different explanations as to what a sleeper really is, where to find them and how important they are, but they will pretty much agree that a sleeper is someone who doesn't have a big name, probably doesn't start, hasn't put up big numbers in the past, who now might have a chance to have a breakout season and be a difference maker on your team. Sleepers are usually either late round draft picks or waiver-wire pick-ups who went undrafted. Now how to spot sleepers, when to draft them, and how long you wait until you believe they are actually worth putting in your lineup are all a little different. Having one of the few sleepers who pan out and be a worthy starter can make the difference in winning your league or not winning. No one starts off the season knowing which sleeper will for sure breakout; all you can do is try and draft one or two and hope that a couple of things fall your way and your sleeper goes from nobody to somebody just like that. It's very hard to go into the draft focused on the guys who will be drafted in the later rounds, but the truth is many drafts are won in the later rounds. If you can have a good draft from top to bottom, it will help you down the line; having a deep team will help you in the event of an injury or to make trades. It's not very difficult to draft players in the first bunch of rounds, guys like Alexander, Tomlinson, Owens, Moss, these players have a history, they have done it before, we can look at their numbers and see where they should be drafted, but a sleeper is different. Most sleepers haven't played enough to accumulate enough stats to make decisions on, so you have to take a small sample (if one exists) to figure out who might be the sleepers of this year's draft. There are many different places and ways to find sleepers. One way is to look for 2nd or 3rd year players who had a chance to play near the end of the year before. At the end of most seasons, the teams out of the playoff hunt will look at some young players, giving them starts and letting veterans sit out. Watching these players can sometimes give you a hint into who might be a good sleeper the next season, if they play a good game or two. Look at Willie Parker who was undrafted out of college and was sitting on the bench in 2004 when the Steelers went 15-1. In the last game of the season, once they had already clinched home field advantage, they decided to rest veteran running back Jerome Bettis, and see what Parker could do. He went into Buffalo, on a cold January Sunday, to face the hottest team in football. The Bills were looking to get a victory and a spot in the playoffs. Well, Parker gained 102 yards on only 19 carries, to help the Steelers win the game, and give anyone who was actually paying attention to this Steelers backup a 1200 yards rusher out of nowhere in 2005. Now this doesn't mean things will always work out for you, but it's a good way of finding a sleeper. Another way of finding a sleeper is to watch the player and coach movement in the off-season, and see which players have been put in situations where they might be able to break out, with the help of certain coaches and their philosophies. A player who might have been going downhill in his career, or hasn't been able to find his way yet might be able to change that by being on a team whose system better suits their abilities. Koren Robinson is a good example. He's a former 1st round pick of the Seahawks, and while he had a couple of solid seasons with them (78 for 1240 yards and 5 TD's in 2002), he was let go at the end of 2004 because of off-field and poor behavior issues. He latched on to the Vikings as their top return man and part time WR. During the off-season they hired new head coach Brad Childress, who brings with him his West Coast offense, and they traded Nate Burleson, leaving the spot of #1 WR open. With those and many other changes the Vikings made on offense, they go into the season looking for players to step up and be leaders. Robinson has a good chance of doing that because he is a step ahead of most of the other WR's because he played in the West Coast offense while in Seattle. He could be in for a very big season. While all this looks good and could very well happen, many times it doesn't, and guys like Robinson will always be picked up for his potential, but might never realize it, because he can't control his other issues. These are just a couple of the many ways to find a sleeper. So, make sure to always pay attention to injury situations, and follow closely what players are doing at training camp. Doing this can help you find many sleepers. Lastly, don't forget that you can still find sleepers after the draft in the first couple of weeks of the season. If you see a player break out and do better then expected, don't sit on the sidelines and watch - make an effort to pick them up and see if they can sustain that output. Or if you know that a starting player has any injury at all, make sure you're the one to get anyone who might back that player up, because once a player goes down, whoever takes over can be a real steal. Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:24:12 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/290094 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/290094 Only Al Davis would start throwing out regret over the spending spree that his team went out BEFORE THEY EVEN PLAY A GAME in the 2008 season.  Maybe it's the recent issues with wide out Javon Walker, who the team way overpaid for, or the simple fact that the team has made strides in adding [...] Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:16:07 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/287596 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/287596 What a whirlwind of an offseason this has been so far! It started prior to the end of the Raiders last game of 2007 and the winds of change have continued to 'dust up' many negative insights about the Oakland Raiders as an organization. In fact, many would wonder, with all of the stories written since the end of week 16, is there any organization to the Raiders at all? It would be so easy to begin believing that there is no hope if you were to have little faith to begin with. If you don't believe, or have little belief left that the Raiders will have a good 2008, then you need to relax a little and take solace with a few reasons that the Raiders are ready for a good year. Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:55:15 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/285098 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/285098 As the Oakland Raiders "Camp Battles" series moves from the side of the ball that scores points to the side of the ball that stops other teams, its time to look at the position that was by far the biggest question mark coming into the offseason, the defensive tackles. Last year's crew was woeful at stopping the run. Warren Sapp has retired, Tommy Kelly has moved from end to tackle, William Joseph has been signed, and both Terdell Sands and Gerrard Warren return. Josh Shaw is hanging around despite being inactive for most of 2007. Wed, 02 Jul 2008 02:12:38 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/284933 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/284933 Maybe you have seen the interviews given by Lane Kiffin and JaMarcus Russell at the conclusion of Wednesday's OTA practice. It's possible that you've taken the time to either read the transcript, a story about them, or even catch some video of the 'event.' If you're like me, you were probably too tired after following the unraveling of the Javon Walker story to give it the attention that it deserves. Or maybe there wasn't anything that deserved that much attention. Fri, 20 Jun 2008 04:17:19 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/280271 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/280271 This is part one of a three part series where we analyze how the Oakland Raiders stack up with the other teams in their division. We'll start at the bottom and work our way up going by 2007 standings. This edition will have the Raiders going against the Chiefs. In 2007, these two teams tied for the worst in the AFC West division, but looked to be going different directions by season's end.... Mon, 16 Jun 2008 03:24:01 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/278347 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/278347 Good Morning All! If this doesn't wake you up I'm positive it should wake McNabb up. After all those years of chasing QB's and finally getting that Superbowl, Strahan is hanging it up. Should be a Hall of Famer and I respect him. But thank God no more pressure from him. Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:50:12 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/276073 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/276073 Since Kiffin took the reigns of the Oakland Raiders, he's continued to look for and find players that have more to offer than just playing their expected position. He wants players that can do at least a second job. In the NFL, 53 players are not enough to field an offense, defense, punt team, kick team, field goal unit, and still have depth if a player gets injured. For this reason, there isn't a player on the roster that will have the luxury to view any task as too small to overachieve. Mon, 09 Jun 2008 01:51:32 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/275979 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/275979 Since the end of the NFL Draft several things have come up, limiting my time to blog: the flu (lost 5 weekdays), major reports due at school and work (continue to lose free time), family obligations/graduations 3,000 miles away (lost a week), and a change in Internet provider that should've taken 2 days, but ended up taking 10.  Needless to say, the last 6 weeks or so have been hectic, and in between everything, I proposed to my girlfriend (soooo wasn't planned, but came together perfectly), who obviously said yes.  I'd be stupid to think that I haven't lost free time due to our engagement, so I guess I have to add that to the list.  I thought my life was getting back to normal when I made the time 2 weeks ago to put up my last posting.  I wrote about the future of the NFL's salary cap and how the Raiders fit in on our flight to the east coast for my soon-to-be brother and sister in-law's graduations, but I had no idea how much I was going to need to catch up on when I got home. The Oakland Raiders' quickness to sign Darren McFadden not just shows that they don't want a repeat of what happened last year with JaMarcus Russell, but it also shows how unconcerned Al Davis is with the cap space in the near future.  Since the owners opted out of their collective bargaining agreement with the players, the Dallas Cowboys have allotted a little over $51 million in guaranteed money (between 34-year old Terrell Owens, Terrance Newman, and Marion Barber).  That's nearly half of what the Raiders spent this off-season on 9 potential starters (Javon Walker, Justin Fargas, Gibril Wilson, Kwame Harris, Drew Carter, DeAngelo Hall, Tommy Kelly, John Wade, and Kalimba Edwards).  I have no issue with how the Cowboys spent, just that I think it's a sign that Jerry Jones understands what the near future has in store.  This is only the beginning; the contracts are going to continue to swell. My life is starting to get back to normal, and I should be completely caught up and blogging by Monday (we've been home from our trip for over a week, yet I still have clothes in my suitcase).  I did make time during the last month to email all my resources (in other words, the only 2 NFL writers I know) to find everything I could on the Raider mini-camps and on goings.  So I've got a couple clips worth posting, and plenty that I want to write about.  Sat, 07 Jun 2008 18:22:37 -0500 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/275697 http://www.yardbarker.com/author/article/275697