Stanford Routt News

Leta s be honest.A The minute youA found outA Bruce Gradkowski wasna t coming back, you knew in your heart the game was lost for Oakland.

We're all feeling pretty good in Raiderland these days, with a temporary break in the clouds coming through in the form of a hard-fought, comeback victory over the heavily favoured Bengals last weekend.

Going into the Bengals game, it seemed like the task for Bruce Gradkowski was impossible.

The Oakland Raiders' Louis Murphy dives for a touchdown with Cincinnati Bengal Morgan Trent in tow November 22, 2009 at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, Calif.

Veteran defensive end Greg Ellis, who underwent minor surgeries to both a shoulder and a knee during the bye week and sat out last week's loss top Kansas City, expects to start against Cincinnati.

Posted by John Paulsen In the Oct. 19 issue of ESPN the Mag , Bruce Feldman argues that speed is far more important in college football , where the hash marks are wider, the preparation isn't as good and the talent disparity is greater, than it is in the NFL, where everyone is fast.

Appearing more relieved than vindicated, Raiders coach Tom Cable spoke publicly Friday for the first time since it was announced he would not face criminal charges for allegedly assaulting former assistant Randy Hanson.

At the half, the Jets lead 24 to nothing. The Raiders essentially gave them two touchdowns with turnovers.

Quarterback JaMarcus Russell looked much better under pressure, knowing when to dump off the ball or simply chuck it out of bounds.

The Raiders really went all out Sunday, throwing out the outdated 1970's style playbook and implementingA a new defense the likes of which Oakland fans have never seen before.

It's simply that the Raiders have won one game in a row before. The trick now is to turn this into a win streak and not merely a tripped-over acorn.

Praise God! The Oakland Raiders have arrived. Thanks to John Marshall and the entire Oakland Raiders defense for a gutsy performance against the highly acclaimed Philadelphia Eagle offense.

Oakland's offseason coaching changes were to be expected, difficult. When we played well against the Chargers, the belief is that we had started to find a proper course.

Randy Hanson's lawyer John McGuinn recently claimed that some of the Raiders defensive backs had been in contact with his client via computer to help them gameplan.

In the victory over the Eagles the Raiders mixed it up a lot on both offense and defense.

Louis Murphy sprinted upfield and laid out a defender with a punishing block. Not satisfied, he caught up to the play again and delivered a second block that allowed Zach Miller to cruise into the end zone on an 86-yard catch-and-run. Oakland Raiders cornerback Stanford Routt breaks up a pass to Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Jeremy Maclin late ...

Yes, despite a 1-4 record and six-going-on-seven years of losing, there are still some very big egos in Oakland.

THERE WAS resiliency and pluck, with big plays at crucial times, all punctuated by a comeback finish worthy of celebration.

Don't believe everything you read, yet. At Raiders.com, there is no addition to the roster.

By Jerry McDonald - NFL Writer Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 9:45 pm in Oakland Raiders .