For The Oakland Raiders, The Game Is Now Mental.

Terrell White – Jul 16, 2012

Holla At Me Raider Nation!

I do believe that I've said this before, however it does bear repeating -

THIS IS THE LONGEST OFF SEASON EVER!!

Just had to get that off of my chest.

Now back to the article.

There's a old saying: If you believe it, you can achieve it.

For our beloved Oakland Raiders, belief will be an important factor in determining whether or not the team will be successful in 2012; belief in themselves, belief in one another, and belief in the system.

Belief stems from the mental. The Raiders will need (and have been) to take a page from Young Jeezy (a music artist) and "Get Ya (Their) Mind Right". As we all know being in the proper frame of mind is very important; especially when it comes to accomplishing a difficult task (such as restoring one's greatness).

With that in mind, (no pun intended) Dennis Allen and company have been, and will continue to look for the team to develop a winning attitude. This despite the team not doing all that much winning as of late.

I was looking at some stats and found it interesting that players who've been on the Raider roster for the past, let's say 8 years or so, (a good amount of time to have command of the game of football) have lost a total of 87 out of a possible 128 games. For those of you non-math majors what that means is, in the last 8 years Raider players have seen a total of 41 victories. 

With the team having done so much losing, the development of a winning attitude is not going to be a easy process. The Raiders being in the proper frame of mind this season should not be taken lightly. Winning teams don't just end up making the plays that win the game by accident.

Winning teams have the belief that they will make the plays that end up winning the game! It's their belief (a mental thing) that they turn into a tangable (a physical thing) factor, which they then in turn use to help them win the game.

Case in point - We've all seen that game in which the so called underdog team rises up and beats the team that is the so called favorite. More often then not these victories don't boil down to who played better. More frequently these victories boil down to belief, and mental attitude.

The so called underdog team has the belief that their time is NOW! It's being in that proper frame of mind which allows them to go out and make the plays necessary for them to ensure that they will win the game. Conversely, the so called favored team has the over-confident belief in that they can't lose the game.

It's the favored teams over-confidence, combined with the belief of the underdog team which eventually causes the outcome of the game; in other words the game is MENTAL.

Teams that truly BELIEVE that they can win, usually do (see the Giants vs. Patriots Super Bowls for extreme examples). Even when they're losing the game, they have the MENTAL BELIEF that they can turn things around and eventually win the game.

The Raiders MUST fight against the opposing mental attitude. Teams that consistently lose games must fight the feeling that - Sure we're winning the game now, BUT sometime sooner or later, we're going to do something that screws up this game for us.

Coach Allen has the difficult, but not impossible job of making his players BELIEVE that they can become/ and already are winners. Despite the fact that they've spent most of their time in Oakland losing.

I like these words from Coach Allen:

"We spend a lot of time talking about the mind set, how we're going to play the game and mental toughness. We talk way more about mental than physical toughness because all of us play the game physically. It's the mental part that we have to push through."

Raider Nation knows that these words are truth. The team has the physical talent—now the game is mental.

Raider From Birth.

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