2 hours to kick-off – Number 22 – Sweating it out in Oakland

Although our first visit into the Black Hole in eight years ago my brother Keith was getting me nervous. Our entire trip up to the Bay Area and the time leading up to game time he kept mentioning that we’d get jumped by maniacal Raider fans. I wanted to introduce tailgating to our tradition and as we set up in the parking lot Keith was so tense his may have shat is pants, but I refused to buy in. Firstly, I was still mending a dislocated toe and couldn’t run if my life depended on it. Secondly, with the incident at the Dodgers baseball game, I figured we should be safe during a day game.

Once on the stadium grounds Keith began being Keith, taunting everyone that walked by, getting the Lions fans in attendance pumped and just having a great time over our grill. It all changed as we began heading to our seats in the stadium. As we walking through the crowd, the home fans began cheering loudly with the R-A-I-D-E-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-S-S-S-S-S at us and a knucklehead immediately charged my nephew and bumped into him. Crowded into the security check, something tapped on my head – I look up an an OG had a vodoo skull/Raider stick that he was ‘casting a spell’ on me with.

Little did he know what he had done – the Lions made a dramatic late game comeback and won the game against the Raiders, 28-27. He had changed our luck. Because of this, we WILL win today.