The chips have fallen and the NFL’s decision to move the Raiders/Browns to Monday afternoon was officially a huge waste of time.
From a health standpoint, there was no impact whatsoever on the game. From a competitive standpoint, the decision allowed the Browns to gain one player and the Raiders to lose one of their best defensive players.
In a Monday appearance on Raider Nation Radio 920 AM’s Morning Tailgate with Clay Baker, team insider Vinny Bonsignore talked about how the NFL’s decision-making process hurt the Raiders this week.
“I know that the NFL had noble thoughts and intentions. We all understand that. But it was a big waste of time,” Bonsignore said of the Raiders’ game being moved to Monday. “That was the big gripe that the Raiders had. I got texts from around the league and the biggest issue that people around the league had about how the Raiders got caught in all this is that they were on a bus getting ready to go to a football game and had to get pulled off. It was the last second nature of all this.”
According to Bonsignore, the indication from the league had always been that they would play the game as scheduled as long as the Browns had enough players. Right up until the Raiders were about to board the bus, the plan was to play the game on Saturday.
“I was in Dallas all week last week,” Bonsignore said. “With the NFL, including the the Commissioner, and the doctors, and everybody else, and every single day that we checked in [they said they had] no thoughts about changing, no thoughts about postponing, no thoughts about forfeiting, [if you’ve] got enough players, you play the game. That’s the rules, That’s what we’ve been playing by. And then for them to change it at the very last second and really disrupt the Raiders.”
It’s possible that the NFL was motivated by only good intentions, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that the NFL gained a ton of financial security in the last few days by negotiating the moved games with the NFL Players Association. According to The Athletic, the NFL agreed to move this week’s games in exchange for a testing policy that will allow asymptomatic COVID-positive players to practice and play in games as normal – as long as they are fully vaccinated and have not tested positive (which shouldn’t be difficult since they will almost never be tested).
Everyone wants football, and the NFL made decisions in the last few days that should ensure that COVID-19 won’t derail the season. But the league can’t pretend to care about the spread of coronavirus any longer.
That ship has sailed.
twitter: @raidersbeat
The NFL has always been corrupt when it comes to the Raiders somebody should investigate the league!
Go figure… Maybe the fans at the upcoming Superbowl can start a chant that sounds a little familar to the one thats expressed to our poor excuse for a president! Just change it to Roger….
The decision hurt the Raiders. Gooddell’s mission accomplished.