Football fans rejoiced when the players signed off on a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) earlier this week, ending the 132-day NFL lockout.
The accord allowed fans to focus on their beloved game, rather than the topics that dominated lockout headlines: billionaires and millionaires bickering, media posturing, union politicking and current and retired players arguing.
Training camps have started to open and the NFL regular season will start on time, both of which teams and consumers are happy about.
But for fans of teams with on-the-field issues going into the 2011 season, the off-the-field CBA debate brought a wanted distraction. Now that the lockout has ended, Bay Area fans are among those faced with confronting the reality of another difficult season.
The Oakland Raiders posted a solid 8-8 record in 2010, the team”s best regular season showing since its Super Bowl run in 2002. Unfortunately, because of the lockout and current free agent frenzy, a .500 record appears unlikely for the Raiders in 2011.
In one of its most important pre-lockout moves, the Raiders front office voided the contract of Nnamdi Asomugha, the team”s best defensive asset and the best shutdown cornerback in the league.
The move made Asomugha a free agent and he is expected to sign a huge deal with some other team by this weekend.
To compensate for the impending departure, Oakland signed other secondary players to new contracts before the lockout and drafted a couple of defensive backs during the lockout.
Still, those decisions won”t make up for losing Asomugha, so expect the Raiders passing defense, which ranked second in the NFL in 2010, to struggle this year.
Another big-name Raiders free agent is tight end Zach Miller.
Miller was a key component of Oakland”s improved rushing attack in 2010 and one of Jason Campbell”s favorite receiving targets. If the Raiders can”t re-sign Miller, their offense will take a big hit.
Considering the Raiders could be in worse shape than any other team with regard to the salary cap, don”t look for the team to be able to sign any star free agent receivers to replace Miller or supplement a weak wide receiving core.
It”s looking more and more as if the Raiders won”t have the same amount of talent on the field as they did last year.
To make matters worse, players couldn”t interact with new head coach Hue Jackson and his staff during the lockout. At least Jackson was on Oakland”s 2010 coaching staff, so the players won”t have to learn an entirely new system.
The same really can”t be said for the San Francisco 49ers.
The lockout may prove most costly for the 49ers because the new coaching staff, headed by Jim Harbaugh, couldn”t interact with players.
Harbaugh, along with new offensive and defensive coordinators, will be implementing a system probably much different than the one San Francisco players saw last year. The group now has less time to integrate into the new system because the lockout cut out a lot of the preseason preparation time.
Where the lockout really helped the team was distracting fans from the 49ers” difficult quarterback situation.
Inept QB play cost San Francisco a shot at winning the bungling NFC West last year – the 49ers” 6-10 mark left them just a game out of first.
The team selected Colin Kaepernick in the offseason draft. The former University of Nevada QB will likely be the backup to Alex Smith, with whom the 49ers recently agreed to contract terms.
Still, 49ers fans know Smith hasn”t shown any glimpses in his career of the talent necessary to lead a team to the playoffs.
To be fair, it hasn”t entirely been Smith”s fault; he hasn”t always had the best offensive talent around him. But San Francisco”s name has seldom come up this week when analysts talk about teams geared up to sign big-name offensive free agents.
Then again, the 49ers also need to add defensive secondary help (the team ranked 24th in the NFL last year), but the talent pool for cornerbacks isn”t that great once you get past Asomugha.
In the end, the 49ers probably didn”t do enough in the draft and won”t be able to fill all of their needs during free agency.
Questions about both teams will soon start to be answered with the 49ers opening camp today and the Raiders already opening on Wednesday.
Jeremy Walsh is a staff reporter for Lake County Publishing. He can be reached at 263-5636 ext. 37 or jwalsh@record-bee.com.
