As most of you probably know, the Oakland Raiders will face the New England Patriots in a re-match of the most jaded football game ever to be played. Now before I write about this, I'd first like to say to Patriots Fans: I suggest you don't read this, unless you like reading about how much someone hates a team. I don't mean any disrespect to any of you Patriot Fans out there, and I know there are a lot of you, I know the all-mighty Benson is one of them ;). So I'm sorry if I hurt any feelings by this, but I must get it out of my system. This is going to be a little lengthy, but this is how I and every other Raiders' fan feels about this issue. Well here it is:

It was January 19, 2002. Things weren't going to swell for my family and me (I don't really need to get into it because it would sound very sappy and this isn't a topic about pitying me). Also today, my Oakland Raiders were set for their 2nd round matchup against the New England Patriots. I said to myself before the game, "I'll be disappointed if the Raiders lose this game, but at least it will be against the New England Patriots and if the Raiders lose, I'd like to see New England Win the Super Bowl." At this time, the Patriots were my third favorite team in the NFL, mainly because my Uncle grew up in Boston.

Anyways, to the game. The Raiders, in the first half, were kicking ass. By the third quarter, they had a 13-3 lead and it was smooth sailing. In the fourth quarter, Tom Brady leads the Patriots on a Touchdown Drive, which cuts our lead to 13-10. But I wasn't too worried about the Touchdown, I thought we were still gonna win. Later on in the fourth quarter in the final minutes, we give the ball back to New England. New England begins to drive on us, and now I'm getting a wee-bit worried. Now there's 1:59 remaining in the game and the Patriots have a 1st and 10 on the Raiders 41 yard line. The ball is snapped and Tom Brady drops back. Out of nowhere comes Charles Woodson and strips the ball from Tom Brady just as he tucks it in. FUMBLE. Greg Biekert recovers, and the Raiders have won the game. Or so I thought. I'm going nuts around the house, marking out like mad. And then comes the instant replay. I was shocked there was even a replay because it looked so obvious to me that it was a fumble. So they show the replay, and I remember Phil Simms (CBS Broadcaster) say, "I think this is a fumble and there is no substantial evidence to overturn the call". And then back comes referee Walt Coleman from the replay booth. I really wasn't nervous at all about the call, it was clearly a fumble and when the TV announcers agree with your opinion, it's usually a good thing. Then Walt Coleman rules it an incomplete pass. I looked at the TV dumbfounded. I couldn't move for a couple minutes. And then I began to comprehend that we just got dicked by the ref and I get extremely pissed off. I'm thinking, "WHERE THE HELL IS MY INDISPUTABLE EVIDENCE?!" I finally calm myself down and say, "Alright, no worries, we're still gonna win". But deep down inside, I knew we were done for. Next play, first down Patriots. Adam Vinatieri goes on to kick two field goals, one to send it to overtime and one to win it in overtime, and the Patriots advance.

After the game, I had to go outside and get fresh air, but I still couldn't calm down. In the course of three hours, the Patriots went from being my third favorite team to the team I hated the most in any professional sports league. I can honestly say that if that was Rich Gannon who got stripped of the ball by Ty Law and Teddy Bruschi picked it up for a fumble that they wouldn't have overturned it, one truly has to think that the NFL front office's bitchfest with Al Davis is the reason the Raiders didn't win Super Bowl 36. I was unbelieveably pissed off and would only calm down if the Patriots lose against the Steelers. But they win. And now they're in the Super Bowl. Now I'm even more pissed off than I was on that fateful Saturday Night; I was gonna rip somebody's head off. But there was still hope for me, the Pats were gonna go up against the high and mighty Rams. So I watch the game with the family, and there were only 2 people rooting for the Rams, my aunt and myself. My Aunt and Uncle have been hardcore Patriots fans for as long as I've been alive, and everyone else just jumped on the bandwagon, rooting for the team that was honestly eliminated on their home turf by MY RAIDERS. And when Adam Vinatieri kicked the game-winning field goal, my whole family cheered as I was fuming and saying to myself, "That should be Sebastian Janikowski kicking the game-winning field goal, not Vinatieri". I had lost five bucks on betting for the Rams, so my hardcore Patriots fan Uncle comes over to me (seeing that I was upset) and says, "Hey, it's only five bucks". But I could care less about the five bucks. My team had just been screwed out of the Super Bowl Title.

As far as I know, the Patriots are the only Championship team to have lost in the playoffs the year they won it all, or at least in all fairness. After the game and as the days, weeks, and months passed on, friends came up to said they were sorry. Usually, they would have rubbed it in my face, but even they knew that my team got jobbed. One of my friends, who doesn't like the Raiders by any means, told me, "Man, you guys got screwed. That was such a fumble". And in the media, while most teams would have probably said if they were in Oakland's position, "It wasn't just that one call that made us lose, we made mistakes in other facets of the game", the Raiders didn't follow suit. Savvy veterans like Tim Brown expressed how he felt about the refs dicking them and Charles Woodson said, much to my liking, "Man, this is some BULLSH*T." However, one guy on ESPN said that the Raiders can't play the Blame Game and that they should have just played football, and they could have won. But how can you play football after such a disheartening blow? I don't blame Oakland one bit for their play in Overtime, they couldn't go on, they were just thinking about how they got screwed, and every other team would have done the same thing. Just today, I read a little Editorial on the Sporting News about the fans reactions to the Raiders/Patriots game in January, and I was surprised to see that many of the fans writing held my position and thought the call was a disgrace to the NFL and its fans.

And now the re-match is tomorrow night, and I've got tickets for it. I've been waiting for this game for almost 10 months to the day. The Raiders could have gone 1-15 this season and as long as that one win was against the Patriots, I would have been satisfied. Way back in August or so, when I found out that the Raiders and Patriots were playing on November 17th on a Sunday Night, I envisioned an ESPN commentator saying how both of these teams were 5-4 and the game had huge playoff implications. And thanks to instant replay, the Patriots are 5-4 and thanks to a HUGE Monday Night victory against Denver, the Raiders are 5-4. So I was right on. And when I watched that Patriots/Bears game last sunday and saw the interception that Tom Brady threw that was called back as an incompletion (I could go either way on that call), I chuckled to myself. I knew the Patriots would capitalize again, as they did. This is what I wanted, a match-up of two 5-4 teams. Way back when I envisioned the ESPN commentator saying these two teams were both 5-4, I also went on to envision a Raiders ass-kicking of New England. I'm gonna be there tomorrow night, and I wanna see Tom Brady's leg broken and have his career ended. I wanna see Adam Vinatieri miss a 45-yard field goal that would have tied the game up or won it for them. And when that happens, I'm gonna find some innocent Patriots fan (not any of you guys or my Uncle) and talk sh*t in their face to my heart's content. The Re-match I have waited for for an eternity is FINALLY just less than 24 hours away. I can't wait. And even if the Raiders do win, it will only heal some of the wound that was dealt to us on January 19th. Now until a Patriots guy forces a fumble on a Raiders QB and it gets reviewed and overturned as an incomplete pass, and the Raiders win the game because of that call, only then will 100% justice be served...

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What a clusterf*ck.

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