A tale of one city

The Oakland Raiders are on the clock. Last year it looked at times that they would lose to Ohio State. Their offensive coordinator was running a bed and breakfast the year before, and their head coach had been out of coaching for over a decade. But no one on the coaching radar will take a job there. Lane Kiffin, the 31 year old coach of the Raiders, didn't have playcalling responsibilites with the Trojans last year; he replaces Norv Turner, retread defined; he replaced Bill Callahan, who took a Super Bowl team to a 4-12 team and was the target of a player revolt; and he replaced Jon Gruden, who's a great coach but who had never been a coordinator when he was hired. They make horrible trades, off the wall draft picks, and sign over the hill free agents. They have the most meddlesome owner in sports, and right now are the laughingstock of the NFL. But amazingly, the are 4 years and 2 months removed from playing in Super Bowl XXXVII.

The Oakland Athletics are the epitome of a well run Major League Baseball franchise. They have made they playoffs five times in the last seven seasons despite having a payroll in the bottom third of the league and letting stars such as Miguel Tejada, Jason Giambi, Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, Keith Foulke, Billy Koch, Johnny Damon, and Jermaine Dye go as free agents, not to mention trading Mark McGwire in 1997. Despite being the one franchise in the sport that you could point to and say a small market team could be successful, they haven't been to the World Series since 1990.

There is such a level of parity in the NFL that teams can go from the bottom to the top of the mountain and back in a few years. The Rams were the losingest team for the decade prior to their first Super Bowl win. Four years ago the Bengals finished 8-8 and Marvin Lewis was in the running for coach of the year. Last year the Bengals finished 8-8 and it was a major disappointment.

For seven straight years the Yankees have won the AL East, the Red Sox finished second, thr Blue Jays third, the Orioles fourth, and the Devil Rays fifth. Last year the Blue Jays finished closer to the Red Sox than the Orioles and the year was considered a success for the Blue Jays and a disappointment to the Red Sox. Admittedly, the Tigers did go to the World Series after coming within shouting distance of the worst record in MLB history in 2003 and their turnaround should be celebrated, but stories like that a few and far between since 1991 when both the Twins and the Braves went from "worst to first," adding the phrase to the sports vernacular.

Most are predicting another bottom feeding season for the Raiders and another close but no cigar season for the A's, but it would be far less shocking for the Raiders to go from worst team in the NFL to the playoffs that it would be for the A's to go from one of the final four teams in baseball to World Series champs, if for no other reason than the inevitable upgrade to the coaching staff the Raiders have gotten. Yet another reason it's easier to be enthusiastic as an NFL fan about your team's chances than for an MLB fan.