Tommorow Marshawn Lynch Will Be A Raider

It is official, the Seahawks have agreed to trade Marshawn Lynch to the Oakland Raiders for a trade of late round picks in the 2018 NFL Draft. Lynch, who is expected to take a physical in Oakland today, will sign a one-year contact for $3 million but will also include bonuses based on his stats and can end up hitting a max of $8.5 million.

With the Raiders in the AFC I am good with this trade because Lynch gets to play for his hometown team and one last “Hoorah” and the Seahawks show their complete respect for him by working with what Lynch wanted.

The Raiders Are Heading To Vegas

On Saturday the Raiders confirmed that they intend on filing relocation papers to move to Las Vegas though an official announcement has not been made but is expected before too long.

 

I know that a uniform change/rebrand probably won’t happen, and I seriously hope they don’t change their logo or colors, because of the history that the Raiders hold but I decided to mess around with some mockups of what might become of the Raiders helmets. I really hope that they keep the silver and black color scheme but this is a What If? situation so of course I have to play the devil’s advocate.

When you look at the Las Vegas area you will notice the use of certain colors, between the casinos and Las Vegas’ various teams from their past and present.

University of Las Vegas: Scarlett and gray

Las Vegas Locomotives (UFL): Red, black and silver

Las Vegas Wranglers (ECHL) Red, black and silver

Las Vegas 51s (Triple-A Mets team): Blue and gray

 

You get the idea, so I worked with red and gray/silver plus there are various gradients so I tossed that in on one of the helmets.

 

With the Las Vegas Golden Knights NHL expansion team finalizing their name and logo I played off of their colors so the professional teams match. They have them listed as steel gray, gold, red and black. I pulled this logo from their official Golden Knights web site.

News From Sin City

Now that I live in Nevada I get to hear all the latest updates on professional sports teams moving to Las Vegas on the local news. I actually live further away from Las Vegas now even though I am in Nevada then I did when I lived in the East Valley in Arizona.  

In June the NHL announced that there will be a new expansion team in Las Vegas, making it the 31^st team in the league, beginning play in the 2017-18 season. The next step for the City of Sin is to come up with a name and if you are a fan of obscure names you are in luck. Get ready for the Las Vegas Desert Knights!!!

Reportedly the final name had been Nighthawks followed by back up names of Desert Hawks and Red Hawks but they were deemed too close to the Chicago Blackhawks so the names were all jettisoned. Next up came Black Knights, pretty cool name but the Army said “NO” so it went to Knights but there is the London Knights in the Ontario Hockey League so those too were kicked to the curb. So here we are at the Desert Knights.

While writing the post I did some searching to find out if there was anything I could use to repurpose to create a logo mock up and I did find out that there are a couple of biker gangs named Desert Knights, so the team has that going for them. Some names that I could suggest based on Nevada wildlife would be Golden Eagles or Mountain Lions. There are no NHL teams with similar names, obviously in the NFL but these are different enough. I did find a couple of colleges with the Golden Eagles name but nothing major. Two names that would be 100% better than Desert Knights.

Now on to news announced today, the Nevada Oversight Committee voted to recommend $750 million public funding for an NFL stadium in Las Vegas in an attempt to lure the Raiders to town. In addition to the public funding, the casino mogul Sheldon Adelson has plans to offer $650 million and the Raiders are offering $500 million for a Las Vegas stadium. Nearly $2 billion would build a beautiful 65,000 seat domed stadium that would also be the home of the UNLV football team.

I wouldn’t feel any different about the Raiders being in Las Vegas and the taxes being raised are room taxes in Las Vegas so it doesn’t bother me but having seen the Mariners and Seahawks almost move and the Sonics stolen I feel bad for the cities that loose professional teams because it affects the fans.

San Diego Goes North and Oakland Goes Way South?

In an interesting, yet strange, turn of events in the world of Los Angeles’ NFL team musical chairs according to a story by Vincent Bonsignore of the LA Daily News if the Chargers do move to Los Angeles as expected the Raiders may move to Sand Diego. WTF?

JaMarcus Russell From Top Dog To Left Out

JaMarcus Russell may want to begin packing his bags, it looks as if his position as the starting QB has ultimately been sacked. Russell was benched when the Raiders brought in Bruce Gradkowski who led the Raiders to a pair of upset wins over the Bengals and Pittsburgh before tearing the MCL ligaments in both knees.

You would think that this would be an opportunity for Russell to step up and show that he is the true starter but the Raiders instead choose to use Charlie Frye, who has not played in a game in over a year, to be the starter. To add insult to injury they signed JP Losman, who was not even playing in the NFL, to be the Third string QB. You wonder how long it will be before Losman becomes the #2 guy and Russell is handing out water and towels during timeouts.