Last year’s Oakland Raiders were a team handicapped by a below average passing game and a porous run defense. New to TFDS in our ongoing Thought’s from a Reader’s Side segment, Jeff Little breaks down the unit that the Oakland Raiders and Raider Nation hope is the most improved part of the team in 2008, the front seven. If you’ve been keeping close tabs on the Raiders recently, then you’ve probably read Jeff’s masterpiece on Todd Watkins last week. If you’ve been sleeping on Todd Watkins click on his name and find out what you’ve missed.

One thing I’ve noticed about Jeff in the short time I’ve known him is that he’s knowledgeable and very passionate about his Raiders, but he is probably the most humble and grateful poster I’ve ever seen at the end of any article. He’s always willing to express his point of view, but he may be the most respectful guy when it comes to disagreeing with yours.

I’ll share a story with you that maybe even Jeff doesn’t know or remember. A couple of months ago, a die-hard member of the Raider Nation, working a crappy job in a crappy town, got tired of every article that he read being full of rumor, innuendo, and the dreaded little slights that are often part of any main stream media article on the Raiders. What got him even angrier was that none of what was being reported, including events and comments, could even be justified with facts or proof.

Filled with anger and disgust, this regular guy, who had wavered on creating a post on Bleacher Report for two weeks, finally decided he’d had enough. He wrote his post. He spent hours writing it, and rewriting it, until he’d perfected it to the best of his abilities. Finally, after what seemed like a day (it was really more like four hours), he published this post. After publishing it, he felt the weight of months of false rumors fall off of his shoulders.

After the anger had subsided, it suddenly hit me, “What will people think of this? I wonder if I can delete it?” I hadn’t thought of anyone reading it, in fact, remembering that it probably wasn’t in danger of being read had me hesitating on deleting it. Yeah, I was the writer. About 15 minutes later I checked to see if anyone had read it and to my surprise, I read, “Good Read Rob…” That poster was Jeff. Because of Jeff, I left the article on the site and it ended up doing quite well, leading me here to TFDS. Thanks Jeff, you helped a frustrated writer to do something about that frustration. So without further ado, it’s my pleasure and honor to introduce you all to Jeff Little.

The new aggressive Oakland Raiders defense
By Jeff Little