You can say this about Oakland Raiders Head Coach Lane Kiffin: he knows what the strength of his offense is. According to Raiders beat writer Jerry McDonald at the Contra Costa Times, Kiffin is having dreams of a monster, clock-killing, punishing rushing attack led by Justin Fargas, Darren McFadden and Michael Bush that will pound the ball at defenses nearly 600 times during the 2008 season.
My amateur math skills tell me that 600 rushing attempts over a 16-game season comes out to, roughly, 37 carries per game. That's a lot of running. As a team, they ran the ball 508 times in '07, including seven games where they had at least 30 attempts.
Without getting into the question of, what does it say about your offense when the strength consists of two guys to never carry the ball in an NFL game, this seems like a dream in every sense of the word. I'm not saying the Raiders aren't going to pound the ball and be a run-first team, but 600 carries, or close to it, is nearly impossible to do.
It seems like every year, at least one longtime Steeler backup gets a nice Christmas present. For years it was wide receiver Lee Mays who would get signed off the street late in the season just because he knew the Steeler playbook. At $20,000 or so a game, it made for a much nice Christmas around the Mays house every year.
