As i'm sure we have all heard by now, Madden will not be released around August 11th when it usually is every year, but instead will be available on August 30th. When Madden 11 was released a representative from the 49ers branch of the SBnation blogs attempted to make an online franchise with one man from each team's blog to represent their team. I was the man picked to rep our beloved Oakland Raiders which was a great honor for me. But, unfortunately the 49er rep's attempt fell short due to a lack of effort. He didn't even get all the teams filled, only 25 of 32 were in the franchise. I tried to see if he needed help but he refused and did nothing instead....who would expect that from a 49ers fan? Haha, but this year shall be different, I will attempt to organize an online franchise and possibly a team play league as well to have a little Madden super bowl of our own, even though the Raiders will be winning the super bowl in real life this year, we might as well take home 2 trophies hahaha.

I play Madden 11 every day still and welcome all challengers, I am currently the leader of the number 1 Madden team play team on Gamebattles.com. I also have a good ranked record but I don't really do ranked games any more because i'm more active on gamebattles. Ranked record is 108-20 with a 17% DNF, if my internet didn't use to suck, (I finally upgraded) my record would be in the 115-13 range. No cheesing either, most players with records like that use glitches and nano blitzes to get that many wins. My singles record on gamebattles is 80-31, not too good but 95% percent of the guys on that site use every glitch known to man to win. But, what i'm most proud of is my team on gamebattles, the xXx staRz. We are currently first on the summer ladder with a 51-5 record, and a 101-25 overall record. We made it to the playoffs in our first season and finished 3rd in the playoffs, this season we are going to take that number one spot though.

If anyone is getting Madden 12 or is interested in helping me get something going with an online franchise or just doing something in general involving Madden with a battle of the blogs, maybe even just a tournament rather than a online franchise or a league could be sufficient. Let me know on here or e-mail me at juggernaut1473@live.com. My xbox live gamertag is OutlawTorn187 so you can contact me through there as well.

Hey guys, this is punisher with the weekly franchise update. Unfortunately, the commish of the league hasn't got 7 teams involved yet, (the chargers being one of them, what a surprise that nobody wants to rep the Chargers) so we are still stuck in week 1 even though the NFL is moving on to week 4. We will eventually catch up though so i'm not worried about it. Me and the Titans rep StPrattrick finally got our game in today after battling conflicting schedules. Final Score:

Raiders - 56 Titans - 24 He put up a hell of a fight but turnovers led to his doom. I'll put up some stats for you guys to enjoy or ridicule, whatever your preference haha.

Passing

OAK - Gradkowski - 24 of 34 for 358 yards 5 TD's 1 INT 132.1 overall passer rating

TEN - V. Young - 21 of 42 for 349 yards 3 TD's 3 INT's 72.4 overall passer rating

Rushing

OAK - McFadden 12 rushes 117 yards - Willie Parker 5 rushes 32 yards 2 TD's

TEN - C. Johnson 12 rushes 75 yards 1 fumble - V. Young 5 rushes 22 yards 3 fumbles

Receiving

OAK - Murphy 7 catches 152 yards 1 TD - McFadden 5 catches 44 yards - Z. Miller 4 catches 53 yards - Heyward-Bey 3 catches 63 yards 2 TD's -  Schilens 1 catch 7 yards 1 TD - Reece 1 catch 17 yards 1 TD - T. Richardson 2 catches 16 yards - W. Parker 1 catch 6 yards

TEN - C. Johnson 9 catches 96 yards - N. Washington 5 catches 142 yards 2 TD's - Scaife 4 catches 14 yards - Britt 3 catches 97 yards 1 TD

Defense

OAK - Wimbley 1 sack 1 pdef - Eugene 1 INT 1 pdef - Routt 1 INT 1 TD 2 pdef - McClain 1 TD 1 pdef - Asomugha 2 FF - Burgess 1 FF 3 FR - J. Henderson 1 FF - Branch 4 pdef - Howard 3 pdef

TEN - Morgan 2 sacks - Verner 1 sack - McCourty 1 INT

I didn't add all the statistics but there's most of them in case you're wondering how i'm doing in the franchise so far. Next up I play xAkAx Skillz as the Rams who defeated the D0NGS0LO22 and the Cardinals 62-27. Should be interesting.

I saw on the Raiders website today that John Bowie has been placed on the injured reserve list.(what a surprise) Guard Brandon Rodd has been signed to the practice squad. And, one of my favorite cornerbacks, Justin Miller, has been re-signed. This guy has what Al Davis and I personally love, incredible speed. He took back two kick off returns for touchdowns last year in just 10 games as an Oakland Raider. He is the perfect dime corner in my opinion and is a threat to take it back to the house every time he touches the ball. I can't see why he was released in the first place because Bowie hasn't proven anything and gets hurt every year. Unfortunately for Bowie I think that this was the last straw for him. He can't stay healthy and got burnt in preseason by #3 and #4 receivers on team's depth charts. Welcome back to Oakland Justin. :)

In a recent post about what to do while waiting for the upcoming NFL season to start, playing Madden 09' was on that list. Kaizer started talking about playing Madden and revealing his schemes in the thread. So, I challenged him to a game. If anyone else plays Madden they should post up their gamer tag so we can rumble. I know Kaizer is one of the main men at this blog site and people here probably would be rooting for him but I love the Raiders too, just as much as anyone else. So, we played a game Raiders vs Raiders. If anyone else wants to play, add me on X box live: thepunisher0187.

Final Score:

thepunisher0187 - 31

KAIZERtheAmazin - 14

1. B.J. Raji (DT) Boston College

- a major improvement over Sands in our 4-3 scheme

2. Clay Matthews Jr. (OLB) USC

- a force to help stuff the run, Morrison will be fine at MLB

3. Ramses Barden (WR) Cal Poly

- a big target for Russell in the red zone and a good deep threat

4. Jason McCourty (CB) Rutgers

- a fast corner for depth and dime coverage

7. Andrew Hartline (OT) Central Michigan

- a late round steal for our zone blocking scheme

I think these guys would solidify our team and cover a lot of holes. I didn't draft a safety because I believe Mike Huff is the guy to play FS with Tyvon Branch at SS. I didn't draft a DE because Trevor Scott and Derrick Burgess should be the starters with Richardson and Gunheim as the backups. Enjoy :)

Maryland WR Darrius Heyward-Bey posted the fastest official time Sunday at 4.30 seconds. His time is tied for the second-fastest mark among receivers since 2000, trailing only the 4.28 posted by Hampton’s Jerome Mathis in 2005. Kansas State’s Yamon Figurs also had a 4.30 run in 2007.

This info was posted on the NFL site and I think if Heward-Bey is available at the 7th overall spot then Davis will definently draft him. Hopefully he is because Russell could use another deep threat.

The free safety for the Chicago Bears was cut today. He is a hard hitting safety who can also pick it off for 6. Sounds like he could be the guy to fill our safety gap due to the poor play of Mike Huff. He should atleast get a chance for the starting job because he is a former pro bowler and would solidify our secondary. Nnamdi Asomugha, Chris Johnson, Gibril Wilson, and Mike Brown sounds like playoffs to me.

Mike Brown has been plagued by injuries in the past few seasons but I still think it would be an improvement from Huff and Eugene.

Also, the Lions cut Mike Furrey this month and would bolster our receiving corps and possibly be in competition for a starting spot. For those who don't know who he is, he lead the league in receptions with 98 in 2006. He reminds me of Joe Jurevicius for Cleveland, not a fast guy but a possession receiver with great hands who could be an outlet guy for Russell since it seems like Zach Miller is the only sure handed guy on the roster right now.

Tom Cable finished the season 4-8 as the interim head coach this year. Kiffin was 1-3 when he was fired so it's unlikely, but possible that Cable could have went 8-8 if he was the head coach at the beginning of the season. Things were looking grim for Cable's future in week 15 when we were 3-11. But, in a most impressive fashion the Raiders dominated the Texans (we finally beat those guys!) and knocked Jon Gruden and his most hated Buccaneers out of contention for any type of playoff hopes. In my eyes, this is the best season we've had in the past 6 years. Russell has another season of experience under his belt and now with a couple of offensive tackles, his future is looking very bright when throwing the ball to Higgins and Schilens. Truthfully though, we went 3-0 with Mario Henderson starting at LT over Kwame Harris. I think I can see our problem! Henderson should definently start at LT next year and we should draft the best available OT with the 7th overall pick to start at RT. This will greatly improve our offense in the biggest way. Our games that we got the most rushing yards in was also with Henderson starting, hopefully the clues are adding up here.

So to get back to topic here.....is Cable now qualified to be our official head coach? Or, should the Raiders try some other options. I heard it's between James Lofton and Tom Cable right now for the job. But, it's not unlikely that the Raiders might try and get someone outside of the organization to lead the team. No matter who it is, I hope the Raiders build off of these last two big wins and have a season good enough to win the AFC West. If we would've went 9-7 this year, we would've took the division. With some good offseason moves, we could be right there in the playoffs.

I am fed up with this crap. I have reconsidered everything that has been going on with the Raiders and finally came to a realization. How is it Al Davis' fault that we are losing? Is he the quarterback? Is he the head coach? No. He isn't. He stated in his press conference after firing Lane Kiffin that Lane had full control of the team. It's obvious this is true because we played a cover 2 defense which we have NEVER been known to do. That showed that Kiffin was controlling the defense, not Rob Ryan. Al Davis was sick of losing 5 years in a row so he signed some big name free agents and traded for Deangelo Hall which in theory would have created the best cornerback tandem in the league and possibly of all time. But, that didn't work because of Deangelo's temper tantrums and terrible man to man coverage. Javon Walker was a stud in Green Bay and even made the pro bowl there. Who would have known that he's a moron that goes to Vegas and flashes thousands of dollars? He's in his 7th season so it's not like there isn't any gas left in the tank, he just doesn't try any more now that he's paid, thus the retirement situation. He is now "injured" for the year, yeah right. Kwame Harris and Tommy Kelly just suck period so I do disagree with Al's big payments for these guys. They're solid players at best but would be backups on any other team. Jamarcus Russell is a product of a great system in LSU. Any quarterback that plays for LSU can look good even if they aren't. Russell appears to be a bust due to overthrowing everyone and fumbling every time he is touched. Maybe he will get better if we get an offensive line or if he decides to roll out or scramble more instead of just standing there 5 seconds waiting to get sacked.

You can't blame players poor performances on the owner. But mostly it is due to bad coaching.(Art Shell, Norv Turner, Bill Callahan, Tom Cable) IF YOU DON'T REALIZE THAT AL DAVIS WANTS TO WIN SO BAD HE WOULD GO BANKRUPT OR INSANE DOING SO THEN YOU ARE BLIND.

To start Andrew Walter to see if he can manage a game any better than Russell. And if he can't then we'll know it's not Russell's fault we're losing. From the look of things though a less than 50% completion percentage is not impressing me any. Our run game is just too good for Russell to be sucking this bad unless he just really does suck that bad. We have Javon Walker, Ronald Curry, Ashley Lelie, Johnnie Higgins, and Zach Miller. It's not like we don't have the weapons to be more successful with.

Trade Fargas for a free safety and we'll be set. Louis Rankin can take his place behind a starting McFadden and a powerful backup(short yardage situations) Michael Bush.

Something needs to be done because our offense obviously isn't doing their job.

is a little punk ratboy who needs to put his big mouth to use somewhere that it's not going to be heard from again. His constant immature comments about the Raiders needs to stop so he can atleast seem somewhat "professional." (What a joke) I look forward to the day Adam! The day that Raiders are on top of the league and win the super bowl! Not only because of my love for the team now, but, JUST TO HEAR YOU SAY GOOD THINGS ABOUT THEM RATBOY. I savor the day Adam, the day when no one can put us down even if we made some mistakes alone the way. Adam Schefter, hearing you say "Yep, the Raiders were dominate and committed to excellence in that super bowl victory" will be absolutely rewarding and uplifting enough for two.....maybe even three lifetimes! :D

a wide out capable of being our number 3/slot receiver. Johnnie Higgins doesn't have enough experience yet and is too important for our return game to see that much playing time on offense. It's the same problem with any of our receivers on the experience factor. Shields, Watkins, and Schilens are all rookies and Curry is our number 2 receiver at the moment. A trade for Anquan Boldin to put Curry in the slot would be great. Or we could sign Jeremy Bloom, because in my opinion he is like a mini Wes Welker as a slot receiver. He's got speed and with some playing time and development he could have great hands too. Joe Horn would be alright because of his experience and sure hands, but isn't fast enough any more to be the type of receiver we need. If it were Walker, Horn, and Curry, we would have no deep threat which is why we drafted Russell. Hopefully it all works out though since we lost Carter.

Broncos WR Brandon Marshall likely to be suspended this week.

NFL sources said Denver wide receiver Brandon Marshall will be suspended this week for three games for violating the league's Personal Conduct Policy.

The suspension could be dropped to two games if Marshall agrees to undergo counseling during his suspension.

Marshall is due in court in September for a trial on a drunken driving arrest from October 2007. He as been arrested three times in the past year.

Ahahaha I love what is happening to the Donkeys so far this year. Now no Donkey fan can say Walker was a bad pickup for us because their star receiver that "replaced" him  won't even be playing in the season opener against us or possibly in weeks 2 and 3. Thank you Brandon Marshall for making my day better!