The Raiders and Broncos engaged in a Monday Night Football contest between AFC West sides with no playoff plans, but there was a far more significant narrative inside the rickety structure known as the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.
Football
While there is unquestionably a growing appetite for the NFL in parts of the United Kingdom, the idea of placing one’s hard earned pounds on the outcome of a Sunday game still seems more rubbish than anything to many making bets.
If anger among Raiders fans about the relocation to Southern Nevada was a central theme at last year’s training camp, such a sentiment has now seemed to move toward more of an acceptance.
Patriots coach Bill Belichick can talk for hours about the influence his father had on what is the pre-eminent coaching resume in NFL history, having grown up around those practices and meetings at Navy.
Brady will try on Sunday to win a sixth Super Bowl title with the Patriots, a feat that assuredly places the quarterback among the greatest sport champions in American history.
We might be looking at the most efficiently run Super Bowl week in recent memory, and perhaps all memories.
The Vikings aren’t playing in their stadium this week, just another loop in the postseason belt of despair that has included four Super Bowl losses.
While early indications are this could prove the most hospitable of Super Bowls, the Patriots-Eagles clash began with the tamest of opening acts.
The company line Tuesday painted a harmonious bond between the team’s new head coach and its general manager, and perhaps such a rapport will exist between men cut from the same Lambeau Field cloth.