On the brink of... something

I am laying here in bed, trying to figure out why in the hell I'm so excited for tomorrow. Opening day has meant very little to us Raider fans for much of the last decade. I watched Rich Gannon limp noodle arm eventually fall apart. I watched Aaron Brooks, Kerry Collins, Josh McKown and Daunte Culpepper all crap the bed. JaMarcus Russell waddled around and threw the ball to no one in particular for a few seasons. Crammed in the middle somewhere, there was even a brief Rick Mirer era. Rob Johnson even made a run in. And now Jason Campbell is going to try his hand at running a really suspect Raider offense. Is he any more likely to succeed where the previously mentioned QBs failed? Probably not. Outside of Zack Miller, he has no proven, reliable target to throw to. The right side of the offensive line is a joke. Neither one of the two alleged starting tailbacks can stay healthy. And yet, for reasons I cannot explain, I want to believe in this cat. This is probably how a battered spouse feels. You know in your heart and your mind that they're going to hurt you again. You have a list of thousands of reasons to not believe in them. You have your bags packed, and you're ready to walk away for good, and then they tell you what you want to hear. You drop your bags and you run to them, wrapping your arms around them. You forgive, and for a brief time you even manage to forget. Things look they're turning around. They're holding down a steady job, trying to make things right. But we all know the end to this story. Just when you tell everyone at Christmas dinner about how much progress they've made, they show up drunk and knock over the Christmas tree. I say this same thing every single year, and yet when opening day comes around I somehow talk myself into thinking they might not actually make me hate football this time. So for the next 17 weeks I'm sure I will experience dizzying highs and devastating lows, and I'll love every second of it because I probably won't be able to go through this next season. If the players and owners really are stupid enough to call the golden goose it will be the dumbest move in the history of pro sports. But we'll cross that bridge when we get there. For now I choose to believe that this offensively inept team is somehow going to win 10 games. Football, everyone. Football.