Armen and Levack were happy to be joined by Schenectady native and afternoon drive host on 95.7 The Game in San Francisco Damon Bruce.

 

 

Armen: Jets at Raiders, Raiders are .500, do the Raiders have a pulse this year?

Damon: Hey the fact that you’re calling me to talk about them is evidence that they do. I mean for the last decade, when a team was playing the Raiders my phone didn’t ring very often, for some reason this year it does and it’s because I think people do see that there is a little something going here. When you’re lost in the woods for as long as the Raiders have been lost, it takes an awfully long trail of bread crumbs to find your way back and it feels like this is a team that is now starting to pick up the bread crumbs. They’ve had good drafts, they’ve got a talented, young core that can be built around. They’ve got players that other NFL Rosters would envy and there were years where you would say, ‘Which one of these guys would anyone who is going to the playoffs want?’ And you couldn’t really come up with a name. This is a talented young team that is coming together under a coach that knows what he is doing and it’s good to see the Raider Nation sort of come back to life this season

Levack: Where are they [Raiders] going to play in the near future? What is the future of the Oakland or should I say the LA Raiders?

Damon: Last night at the Paramount Theatre the NFL staged a big town hall meeting, so a whole bunch of people painted their faces, put on spiky shoulder pads and went. I think it’s nice that the town hall meetings are happening, but my real question is ‘Is this anything other than platitudes?’ Is there any single fan—can Raider Mike from Sacramento stand-up and say something so impassioned, so heartfelt that the NFL turns its back on a billion dollar opportunity, I don’t think so. There’s a part of me that looks at this town hall meeting that happened last night and thinks—what a waste of everyone’s time because there is not a word here that is going to get back to the Commissioner or to a relocation committee. Everyone’s fan base wants that team to stay, so it’s not like we have any new information or anything. I really don’t know. I heard that the Raiders make a lot of sense for LA and it’s clear that they do with their past there. I’ve also heard that the city of Los Angeles does not exactly want the Raider image and brand attached to them in their second go around in the NFL. This LA team, that ever gets there, they’re going to want as much Hollywood and glitz and glamour attached to that. They’re going to want A-list celebrities, they’re not going to want—I just think that Raider image. I’ve heard that they have gang task force basically already petitioning the NFL. ‘Whoever you send us, don’t send us the Raiders.’ So I don’t know, I think the Raiders are a sleeping giant in terms of popularity, merchandising—they’ve been so poorly run by an owner who is clearly in over his head in Mark Davis. They’ve been lost in the woods that people forget that Raider nation actually exists, so the fact that you’re a Raider fan in Upstate New York—there used to probably be—hundreds of you, you’re now down to a thinned out herd. It’s been a rough go of things for this team, but I really believe that they’re best served staying in Oakland. They will always mean something here in Oakland, they’ll be a thing to do in Los Angeles. Just one of another hundred things to do in Los Angeles, where here it matters, it really does. I’ve been talking to fans all year, no fan wants to see their team taken away, so I have no idea. I know we are sort of in the prediction business, but this is one I really cannot call, I have no idea where the future is with the Raiders.

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