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Just six weeks of infractions and distractions into this, the 49ers and Raiders have provided a common theme for their 2003 campaigns:
Done and doner.
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OK, mid-October is fairly early to be writing off two franchises that combined to win 21 regular-season games last season. But the truth is out there for these twin 2-4 teams: When the 49ers play host to Tampa Bay on Sunday and the Raiders play host to Kansas City on Monday night, two potential Super Bowl teams will be in the Bay Area, both wearing road uniforms. NFL Tickets
And, barring a couple of Week 7 upset victories, with many tough tests ahead,
the two home teams can probably start making January tee times.
Here's an unmistakable sign of weakness: The Raiders and 49ers' four total victories
have come against teams with a combined 3-17 record.
"We're sitting here at 2-4 and time's running out for us," 49ers Coach
Dennis Erickson said Monday. "If we want to go to the playoffs, we're running
out of time, let's face it."
Monday was a sunny day on both sides of the bay, but neither team denied that
they were facing the prospect of a darkening future.
Granted, the 49ers are probably the better team, probably a decent NFL team.
They're reasonably young, they're in a mediocre division, and they look like
they're getting it together.
The 49ers actually played one decent half in Sunday's comeback loss to Seattle.
The Raiders have yet to string together a full quarter of meaningful quality
play.
But the 49ers might have the NFL's toughest remaining schedule -- trips to Philadelphia,
Green Bay and Baltimore -- and they might need to play well just to get to 8-8.
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Both teams have long injury lists, especially on the offensive line, but that's
life in the NFL. Both teams have great players who aren't playing so great;
hello, Rich Gannon and Terrell Owens.
Both teams have relatively low-key coaches who don't hyperventilate on the sideline
or in news conferences and who are grasping to shape team unity and formulate
team identities.
By the way, both teams could be in for Richter-scale remodeling in the off-season,
starting with the coach in Oakland (paging Dennis Green).
At the Raiders' Alameda base, Coach Bill Callahan spoke of pride and discipline,
but mostly because his team has so obviously been lacking in both this season.
"Obviously, it's not disciplined enough to measure up to the competition,"
Callahan said of his team, which racked up 19 penalties in its loss to Cleveland
on Sunday.
"Consequently, I'm accountable. I have no problem with that. That's the
way it goes in professional football." NFL Tickets
As a rookie head coach, Callahan was solid enough to lead the Raiders to the
Super Bowl last season. In Year 2 of the post-Jon Gruden era, the Raiders are
graying at the key positions, fraying at the edges and displaying a knack for
committing penalties at the wrong time.
"I don't compare myself to Jon Gruden, by any sense," Callahan said
when asked if he ever gets as fiery as Gruden behind closed doors. "We're
different people completely and emotionally speaking."
It tells you something about either me or Callahan (or both of us) that I was
most intrigued by his ability to come up with euphemisms for numskull penalties:
"error in our game," "penalty bug," "scenario of penalties,"
and my favorite, "penalty production."
Realistically, the Raiders need to win eight of their final 10 games, which
seems highly improbable. This just isn't the same team that bounced back in
2002 from a four-game losing streak with a 7-1 finish.
"Heat? I put more heat on myself than any of you could even possibly or
feasibly imagine," Callahan said. "The challenge is there to try to
repeat and duplicate what you did a year ago -- it's extremely hard." NFL
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At the 49ers' Santa Clara headquarters, things were a little less fatalistic,
because of that impressive second-half comeback.
But the one-point loss ended with the same mistakes -- a blown extra-point try,
Garrison Hearst's fumble, botched defense on Seattle's clock-killing final drive
-- that have haunted the team since Week 2.
There are excuses to be made, but excuses never seem to count in those playoff
tiebreaker formulas.
"Nobody cares -- if you lose, you lose," Erickson said. "If you
have injuries, you have injuries. Nobody cares. You just go on."
Does Erickson think about going a little Grudenesque on his players?
"That Knute Rockne thing, you motivate them as you can, but we've just
got to prepare, got to go to work, practice well, that's what they've got to
do," Erickson said.
"That's what I told them today. Don't change what you've been doing, because
you've been doing the right things in practice. Just keep doing it. That's the
only thing I know."
There's nothing else to do. The truth is out there. Winter is a long ways away,
but it's about to get very cold here, very quickly.