“Raiders? Heaven Help Us” by George Kimball
Boston Herald - January 21, 2003

The Oakland Raiders arrived in town for Super Bowl XXXVII last night. Their fans will be along as soon as they make bail.

The profusion of pious types throughout the National Football League always gives rise to an interesting question come Super Bowl time. If both rosters are replete with born-again players, for which team is God supposed to root?

My own supposition always has been that God has better things to do than worrry about who wins the Super Bowl, but in the instance of the game to be played at QualComm Stadium on Sunday, we are presented with a more interesting theological phenomenon.

Super Bowl XXXVII may mark the first time in the history of the event in which Satan has an active rooting interest.

The Raiders and Buccaneers employ the skull-and-crossbones as a symbol, but only one of them means it.

You could approach a man on the street in any one of a hundred cities and ask the question: ”What is Lucifer’s favorite football team?” and 100 out of 100 responses would be: ”The Raiders, you idiot.”

If ever evidence existed that God does actually care enough about who wins a football game to intervene, it took place on January 19, 2002, in Foxboro.

Now, a year later, the time has apparently come to give the Devil his due.

The storyline that will be hammered to death this week involves Jon Gruden meeting his old team in the Super Bowl a year later. No, the Buccaneers didn’t sell their souls to the Devil to get to the Super Bowl, but they did the next best thing by sending a bunch of draft choices as compensation to Al Davis, who could be, the best we can tell, Beelzebub’s emissary on earth.

I mean, you didn’t see Metallica playing in the parking lot in Tampa on Sunday, did you?

You want more evidence of a Satanic cast to this week’s proceedings, just look at the Oakland offense: Tackle Langston Walker wears No. 66. Running Back Randy Jordan was born on 6/6. Tim Brown was born in ‘66.

Sure, Al Davis’ teams have been to Super Bowls before, but that was before the toothless, Darth Raider, studded dog-collar and body-odor element took over the stands.

Back in the old days when you mentioned the Black Hole, you were probably talking about John Matuszak’s armpit. Now Raider fans all look like John Matuszak in face paint and root for common lowlifes such as Bill Romanowski and Sebastian Janikowski.

Romo’s locker is stocked with more pills than your neighborhood pharmacy. After he famously spit in the face of San Francisco’s J.J. Stokes in a ”Monday Night Football” game a few years ago, 49er Garrison Hearst described the Raider-in-the-making as ”a racist dope pusher.”

Janikowski is so stupid that last year he apparantly become the only man other than Nick Nolte to give himself an overdose of the date-rape drug GHB. According to a police report, Janikowski just collapsed on the floor of the Sno-Drift Bar last October, cutting his face and requiring five stitches.

But then Davis always has prided himself by stocking his rosters with the bottom feeders of the NFL scrap heap. Though this year’s edition of the Raiders is unusual in that, as far as we can tell, it doesn’t include a single convicted rapist.

The team’s fans follow right in line. A few hours before kickoff in Oakland I saw one woman wandering the mezzanine wearing a skimpy black T-shirt that read ”(Expletive) You If You Hate The Raiders.”

This particular damsel had her 10-year-old son in tow. Somebody, presumably the mother, spiked the poor kid’s hair and painted it black and silver.

Two dozen of the Raiders’ more enthusiastic supporters were detained by the local constabulary after celebrating the team’s 41-24 win in Sinday night’s AFC Championship Game by trashing blocks of downtown Oakland, torching an auto repair shop, overturning cars, and throwing rocks and bottles.

You couldn’t help but wonder what they might have done if the Raiders lost, but the city fathers are unlikely to spend much time worrying about it. They’re all on their way to San Diego. Yes, after a lifetime of trying, Brown has finally made it to the big stage.

No, not Tim Brown. Jerry Brown - mayor of Oakland.