It happened over a week ago and I'm still sore

Agony of defeat September 18, 2005

Oh the pain the pain. Here it is less than an hour after watching my Raiders lose to those hated Kansas City Chiefs and I can’t shake the agony. The grief in me is like a hunger pang that makes one bend over and hold their stomach in agony. The reason the pain is so agonizing is not because we lost but how we lost. Many share in the blame for this one. The Refs, Raider coaches, quarterback Kerry Collins and maybe a few too many dumb penalties at the most devastating time.

As much as I want to focus on the positives of our performance at this hurting moment I cannot. My attention is being held hostage by a grueling agonizing pain that keeps kicking me in the stomach causing me to exhale exasperatingly.

How close were we you may ask? How about first and ten at the KC thirteen yard line with two time outs and one minute fifty eight seconds to work that Raider magic. The good field position being a gift from our highly challenged and exhausted young defense. They bent all night but never completely broke. A few cracks in their dented and dinged Silver and Black armor maybe but when it called for a big play they delivered by creating and recovering a KC fumble with minutes left in the game.

With the Coliseum on edge our unproven leader, QB Kerry Collins, runs three offensive plays and we find ourselves in a fourth down and six to make a first down, eleven for the touchdown. Every single Raider fan had the jitters as our fearless unproven leader lined up the offense for what would be a do or die play. A part of us wanted to believe that our destiny to win was written in that pearly white full moon lounging over the thinly clouded east bay hills like a London streetlamp piercing through fog. Others probably felt that we were due some luck this one time tonight after having two touchdowns called back due to questionable penalties on our offense. Either way, every Raider fan foresaw prematurely that we’d be hollering in ecstasy after the success on this upcoming fourth down. How else are fans of one of the winningest franchises in sports history supposed to think?

After we took a timeout our team huddled up and planned what could turnout to be their final battle cry. Probably an all for one and one for all type huddle hype. Many of us fans paced in our aisle and nobody was sitting. A few glances at one another spoke what none of us were truly willing to say out loud. We were scared! Scared that our yet unproven leader may not be ready to display proof of leadership skills in the clutch. All night we’d been coming close in the clutch and all night we came up just inches short of our goal. Sure there were big plays made and points scored but KC seemed to be just a step ahead of us in all categories including that all important edge, Lucky Breaks.

When the Raiders Offense breaks the huddle and walks up to the line of scrimmage you can hear a group inhale from the crowd, a crowd I estimate to be around 58,000 plus a few stuffed life-size KC dolls for fan stress relief. Our fearless leader lines up behind center and begins yelling out signals. I realize the gum I’ve been chewing for hours is stuck on my upper palate due to loss of saliva, the dryness being a result of tension. I dare not wedge it free and lose focus of the play. My body, along with all the inhabitants of upper deck section 322, tensed simultaneously as the ball is snapped. Immediate yelling from everyone began as it was evident we were running a pass play. Notice I say “we.” At that moment of spontaneous yelling, everyone felt that they were the quarterback and knew just where the ball should be thrown. With the defensive pass rush being held at bay QB Kerry Collins has ample time to make the right choice and complete his throw.

What felt like minutes lasted no more than ten seconds? I’d pretty much lost all analytical offensive coordinator skills and was in prayer mode by now, hoping and praying that we’d score or be angelically granted a first-down. In the next instant we would know whether God and his angels were smiling with us or crying silver and black tears for us all. It never even crossed our minds that KC may also have a direct line to God for divine intervention. To us KC was child to the anti-Christ and we’d surmised that any luck granted on their side was conjured up by no other than Satan himself. Proof being the gruesome blood red color in their uniforms signifying their commitment to Hell.

In the moments it took for Collins to spot WR Jerry Porter streaking across the back of the end-zone and to throw the football those eleven plus yards, us fans had dreamed up a lifetime of winning scenarios for this game. We all peered towards the end zone as Porter, covered shrewdly by a KC defender, reached back and got his fingers on the short thrown ball. Flashes of that juggled short yardage completion to Porter earlier in the drive ran through my memory bank, but I didn’t let it spoil my hope for the moment nor my imagined dream.

Seeing Porter falling while the pass defender swatted at his outstretched hands and snatched the ball was a lesson in time and space warp illusion. I swear it looked like the play was in slow motion and my screaming along with the 58,000 other sellout paid fans was echoing thickly in the coliseum void. Like trying to run toward or away from something in a dream. Or watching a glass of milk as it’s knocked off a table and your reaction impulse is triggered as you watch the slow descent of the glass falling, falling, and falling. A moment in time encapsulated in our memory banks and on video to be replayed over and over if we so choose. Chris Berman style maybe.

But what would have, could have and should have been just wasn’t to be. Not for those 58K watching with their 116K puppy dog eyeballs glued to Porter lying on the turf without the pigskin. Half of us didn’t even notice that the KC defender had intercepted the ball and was sprinting across the end zone in celebration before taking a knee. Our Silver and Black prayers and hopes for the day died there on the cool evening turf along with the hopes of a dejected number 84 Jerry Porter.

This moment frozen in time ended for me when that gritty hunger pang I mentioned earlier started gnawing at my insides. I choked back the pain, stuck my chest out and lifted up my chin doing as I’d been taught to do when adversity strikes. But a person knows when he’s lying outwardly to himself. All it takes is that quiver of pain to remind us that we may fool others but we can’t fool ourselves nor cheat the devil. For all the festive energy invested in a Raider Nation day, the moment of truth had finally come and we wept internally for our fallen team and our crushed dreams of grandeur. I guess someone has to pay the piper for the party that began at sunrise.

Our team had fought back from their earlier foibles and came up just eleven yards short of their goal today. But the loss cannot take away the love and pride we all demonstrated for out team on this day. A day of recaptured pride and poise for our team’s first home game of the 2005 season. And our Silver and Black Soldiers looked every bit as much committed to achieving excellence through their battling effort today.

Old friendships were reunited and new ones were made on this beautifully bright day in the Northern California sunshine. With food being grilled for gobbling and suds soaking the smiles of many, it was a day of Raider Nation Glory. Though we’d all drag ourselves out of the coliseum in a state of shock and awe on this ESPN taped Sunday evening, we’ll relive this day of fun in the sun and a night highlighted by a Randy Moss 64 yard TD for years to come. The Moss grab was a thing of beauty and I myself felt I got my money’s worth after seeing his spectacular jump, catch and run at our end of the field. Pure Beauty Homey!

So I’m back home trying to put a smile on a face that’s had a permanent scowl since the loss. I’ve been at it writing out my pain for about an hour and though I still have light pangs I know tomorrow’s another day if I can make it until then. I’m sure things could be worse.

There, I’m actually feeling better about the future of my team. Maybe I’ll volunteer some of my time for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts tomorrow. But right now I still want to sulk for just a little longer. Damn we were so close to pulling off a win tonight, so close. And it aches so because I invested all my heart and emotions today. So excuse this man for being such a sore loser for this one evening. I can draw no lessons from this loss. To some it’s only a game, but to me at this moment it’s like losing a world that you spent a day creating. Tomorrow’s will be a new creation and with it a new promise.