Missing My Brother Willie

 

1957  -  2022

Raiders Continue Red Zone Woes

 

#10 WR Mack Hollins had a career day filling in for injured Hunter Renfrow

The Raiders are now the only NFL team with three losses and no wins. And they have earned every tick in the 0-3 loss column. 

Today's team game stats look as if the Raiders did everything right. They led in most categories. But two ugly stats stick out like a sore thumb: 1-12 on third down efficiency and anemic Red Zone execution. Not converting on third down equates to a tired defense, as seen in last week's overtime loss to the Cardinals.

But then you get to that all-telling Red Zone stat, reflecting scoring success versus failure inside the twenty-yard line. For the Raiders it was the ugly stepsister to third down inefficiency. Just two touchdowns in six red zone visits, Six! Meanwhile, they limited the Titans to three red zone visits but guess what? the winless Titans scored touchdowns on all three attempts inside the twenty. And in today's high-scoring offensive football competitions, touchdowns, or lack thereof, are where games are won or lost.

So here the Raiders sit at the bottom of the league after only three weeks of play. I wanna say there's still fourteen games left on the schedule to prove they are contenders. But I know I'd just be kidding myself. These are not your 2021-22 scrappy Raiders, who found ways to win against the toughest of competitors during the most scandalous of team seasons. No, these Raiders are just the opposite, finding ways to lose with winning opportunities banging on the door. 

When a shiny looking automobile is seen sputtering and puttering along as it climbs up not so challenging hills, casual observers are left wondering how such a good-looking vehicle can struggle against such mediocre challenges. Thoughts of fuel problems, clogged exhaust, bad timing chain, bad engine seals or gaskets come to mind. Or perhaps the shiny vehicle is simply a lemon, straight off a shady used car lot. 

Well, if that automobile happens to have a 2022-23 Raiders Pirate Logo emblazoned on its hood, you can bet it suffers from one or more of the above-mentioned problems. And there seems to be no mechanic available on the sidelines qualified to troubleshoot and/or fix the problem. 

Sorry Raiders fans but we got sold a lemon this season. What looked so sparkly and bright during a 4-0 preseason is simply not up to the challenge of a regular season NFL schedule.

Ownership chose to bring in a new pit crew (coaching staff) who stripped down last season's model, replacing integral parts (OL) of a playoff caliber team. The crew, with coaching experience in New England, brought in an unusually high number of former Patriots players.  Turns out the overhaul was a step back instead of a leap forward in the team's development as a championship contender. Things just seem so off and out of synch for this Raiders team, a team so full of preseason promise. 

I guess that's why it's called PRE-Season, as in Pre-Mature! And as they say, promises are made to be broken...

Inward Grace - Ellen Glasgow

note: I'm currently two-thirds through reading a book by Ellen Glasglow titled "Vein of Iron." This down-home and simple novel depicts life in a small, rural, Virginia valley community, beginning around the year 1900. It follows the life of a young girl, Ada Fincastle, as well as the past present and future of the Fincastle family. The descriptions of peoples, places and events ring with familiarity to any reader raised in a similar valley community. 

Author Ellen Glasglow writes in a way that lets readers embrace her descriptive sentences through use of all five senses; taste, smell, vision, touch, hear. And, although the novel was published in 1935, there is an immortal "Inward Grace" emitting an undying beacon of light and truth for present and future generations.

"Children were chasing an idiot boy up the village street to the churchyard." (Novel's first line)

"The Meaning of Faith" - Paths and Moods

By Harry Emerson Fosdick

Pg.88 “There is but one thing needful – to possess God.

The sad perversions of religious faith are not a matter for foreign missions only. At home, too, we find people who seem to be rather worse than better because they are religious. Just as power in any other form may be abused, so may religious faith. Some in the name of religion become censorious and intolerant, some superstitious, some slaves to morbid fears; and ignorance, self-conceit, pride, and worldly ambition when driven and enforced by a religious motive are infinitely worse than they would have been without it. 

Toward this fact two attitudes are possible. One is to throw over religion on account of its abuses, which is as reasonable as to deny all the blessings of electricity because in ignorant hands it is a dangerous power. The other is to take religious faith more seriously than ever, to see how great a force for weal or woe it always is in human life, and to strive in ourselves and in others for a high, intelligent, and worthy understanding and use of it. For religion can mean what Amiel said of it: “There is but one thing needful – to possess God.

Religion is not a method: it is a life – a higher and supernatural life, mystical in its root and practical in its fruits; a communion with God, a calm and deep enthusiasm, a love which radiates, a force which acts, a happiness which overflows.” 

From our study of the perversions and travesties of faith, we turn therefore in the weekly comment to consider faith’s vital meanings. So Paul, writing to the Galatians, rejoices in religion as a gloriously transforming power in life.

-        But I say, Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary the one to the other; that ye may not do the things that ye would. But if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, parties, envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of which I forewarn you even as even as I did forewarn you, that they who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control; against such there is no law. And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof.

-        – Gal.5: 16-23.

0-2 Raiders Missing Game Plan Adjustments

The Raiders week 2 collapse I blame on the coaching staff. How do you blow a 23-7 lead going into the 4th quarter? Abandon the crucial rushing game, which keeps the clock moving, and settle into a prevent defense, that's how. 

The game should never have come down to an overtime Hunter Renfrow fumble resulting in a Cardinals 59-yd scoop and score. It hurts just typing the game-ending play.

In the first half the Raiders dominated with a balanced dose of run, pass, and defensive pressure plays. They came into the third quarter leading 20-0. They would muster a lousy 3 more points to the Cardinals 16, losing 23-29 in Overtime. Abysmal!

We saw it once in a super bowl (SBLI), where the Atlanta Falcons let Brady and the Pats come back from a 28-3 third quarter deficit. The "Dirty Birds" had built what appeared to be an insurmountable lead, mostly due to an aggressive passing game. But instead of adjusting their gameplan to a run heavy offense to chew up the clock, they just continued throwing and throwing the ball. Meanwhile, the Pats made adjustments on both sides of the ball and kept punching.

With 8:31 left in the third quarter, the Pats scored their first touchdown of the game. They would tie the game on an eight-play fourth quarter drive with :57 seconds left in regulation. The "Dirty Birds" offense never saw the football in overtime.

Final Score

Patriots 34

Falcons 28

- Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Abandon Running Game During Late Football Game Lead -

Just Blog Baby - Raiders Embarrassing Collapse

THE BRAVE ONE

 

The Brave One (1956)

I chose to end my evening with a late-night western film.  I had watched one earlier in the week - Man of the West (1958) - and felt like repeating the simple, easy-to-follow story westerns tend to feature. In westerns you usually know upfront the cast of characters and their roles in the plot. There is the good, bad, cowardly, and two-faced all on display, adding to the drama of the old west.

 

Well, when I chose “The Brave One” I was expecting just that, a bunch of cowboys and cowgirls in the wild west doing and saying things that make for a predictably, entertaining western movie. What I got was something much different.

 

“The Brave One” turned out to be a simple story from beginning to end. Instead of cowboys in gun battles and whiskey shot saloons filling the screen, the movie gives viewers a cute motherless child, along with his motherless calf who grows into a prize fighting Bull. 

Like I said, simple, melancholy, sweet story set in the old west of Mexico. And yet, with a title like “The Brave One” this sweet coming of age story was as much about strength, courage, and honor as any gunfight at a corral movie could be.

 

Take a poor young boy on a cattle-raising ranch in Mexico, with a love for animals. Give him a wise, widowed father and loving older sister. Let him experience the untimely death of a gift cow at the hands of nature, while at the same time a blessed birthing of a strong bull calf. And there is where the story of a motherless boy and bull calf becomes cemented in viewer's hearts.

 

By the end of the movie, I realize the title “The Brave One” refers as much to the little boy as it does the brave bull. For the boy is precocious and brave, demonstrating time and again his strength through convictions of love for his growing bull. When the boy runs through city streets, dodging the dangerous and chaotic Mexico City traffic with ease, it is as if he is the bull in the ring dodging and dancing with renowned bullfighter Fermin Riviera and his assistants. 

The boy has as much fight in him when trying to save his bull from the bullfighting ring, as the bull has in fighting to survive his sacrificial destiny and hopefully reunite with the boy.

 

As for the Bull’s love for the boy, it was demonstrated in a ferocious attack from a mountain lion, where the Bull protects his little friend by fending off and killing the would-be predator.

 

In the end, through strength and endurance, both boy and bull are successful in gaining pardons so they might live out their lives together as loving friends.  

 

The connection between the boy and bull is the draw and strength of this movie. The boy’s classroom teacher educates her students on the love and sacrifices of the Mexican President and his commitment to the poorer Mexican people. I believe this became a theme for young Leonardo; being committed and of service to someone or something you love, while becoming its protector.

 

One drawback on the movie is the aging of young Leonardo. His aging in the movie does not match the four-year aging of his bull-calf. Leonardo stays the same young boy throughout while the calf (Gitano) becomes a strong, mature bull. This was probably done because of the cuteness and connection his character brought to the movie. 

I would guess the story was not originally written to keep Leonardo that young. I reckon once the director and producers saw the magical bond between boy and bull onscreen, they saw the makings of a match made in heaven and stuck with it. This was a good call in that it allowed for the cutest of movie endings which pulled at the heartstrings. Hollywood at its finest. I'm also guessing the mature Bull was likely a cow in disguise, but against this city-boy the ruse worked completely.

 

Not all westerns are about how the west was won or lost. Some, like “The Brave One,” remind us of the strength and courage forged between a passionate child and his beloved pet. A simple story full of innocence, love, and courage.

 

NFL Season Begins!

 

It's Arrived, It's Addictive, and It's as American as the 4th of July.  NFL Football kicks off its 2022 Season Thursday Night. The much-anticipated event features a game between the Buffalo Bills (Go Bills!) and defending Super Bowl Champion Los Angeles Rams. 

Get ready for plenty of fireworks, snacks and beverages as the game, which unites Americans like no other, takes center stage in homes across the country.

We Are Ready For Some Football!