By Martin Gallegos
Everything you thought you knew about football is a lie, or at least that’s what week one of the new football sea- son exposed.
All throughout the offseason, talk around the league was that there would be a sort of changing of the guard between the two Bay Area teams.
The Oakland Raiders, led by new Head Coach Jack Del Rio and young stars Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper, were expected to make a jump to respectability this season after their abysmal 2014 season that saw the team go 3-13.
Over in Santa Clara, Rome was burning. The San Francisco 49ers parted ways with head coach Jim Harbaugh, who led them to a Super Bowl in and lost stars like Patrick Willis, Frank Gore, Justin Smith and Aldon Smith either to retirement or free agency. Various prognosticators picked the 49ers to finish dead last in their division and to compete for worst record in the league.
Funny how things change.
After one week in the NFL, the 49ers are back to looking like a team ready to get back to the playoffs and the Raiders are looking like, well, the Raiders.
The 49ers picked up a 20-3 won against the Minnesota Vikings in front of the whole nation on Monday Night Football. Running back Carlos Hyde made fans forget all about Frank Gore as he ran for 168 yards, the most ever by a 49er running back since Gore’s 200-yard game in 2009 against the Seahawks. San Francisco’s young defense was flying all over the place as
they refused to give up a single touch- down to Minnesota’s Adrian Peterson, who is widely considered as the best running back in the NFL.
You know what this means, 49er fans? Super Bowl or bust!
The Raiders looked dreadful in their opening game as they suffered a 33-13 drubbing at the hands of the Cincinnati Bengals. Raiders quarterback Derek Carr was removed from the game after injuring his hand and the Bengals, in what appeared to be an act of mercy after being up 33-0 after three quar- ters, decided to ease up and not score another point in the fourth quarter.
0-16 for the Raiders it is.
No, I’m not serious about the Raiders going winless, or the 49ers winning the Super Bowl.
It’s week one. There’s still a long season to go and anything can happen. But if the first week of the NFL showed us anything, it’s that we all truly have no idea what we are talking about when it comes to how good or bad a team will be. Let that be determined on the field.
