This weekend, Rolando McClain, Alabama linebacker and top draft pick of the Oakland Raiders, sat down for for an interview with Decatur Daily, his hometown newspaper, for a friendly, nice interview before rejoining the Raiders this week for off-season practices. It’s the kind of small town, sweet interview with the newspapers where you aren’t asked any hard questions. Usually no real news is made. However some news, indeed, was made by Rolando McClain.

The draft is complete. The first mini camps have been held by teams, and this week rookies are reporting back for their offseason training sessions. However, as of this writing, Terrell Owens is still without a job. Owens probably will end up somewhere, yet the offseason is four months long without any team showing significant interest. Internally, the Raiders have discussed Owens. However things haven’t progressed beyond that, and it may be a while before it does.

Entering into the game today against Oakland, Cincinnati was feeling good about their team. The Bengals had a 7-2 record and led the AFC North, while the Steelers and Ravens, the two leading rivals in their division, earlier this afternoon lost their games. However, as they are flying home tonight out of Oakland, Cincinnati will be not feeling so great. In an upset that came as a complete shock and that will serve to reshape the playoff race in the AFC, the Raiders were able to score 10 points during the last 41 seconds of the game to defeat Cincinnati, 20-17

Since mid 2007 no other NFL team has been as bad as the Chiefs. Somehow all of the mistakes and losing seem to disappear when Kansas City visits Oakland. On a run of 44 yards, Jamaal Charles scored to give Kansas City their first rushing touchdown this season, and Kansas City took advantage of an interception late in the game to win on Sunday 16-10 for the seventh time in a row on the road versus Oakland.

For the Chargers it was just business as usual, as they defeated the Raiders on Sunday 24-16, with two Tomlinson touchdowns and one of them coming from the wildcat. It was San Diego’s 13th win in a row versus hapless Oakland, to preserve the NFL’s longest active winning streak of one team against another. San Diego (4-3) have been able to sweep the series six seasons in a row. Many of the Chargers players, including Philip Rivers, quarterback, haven’t ever lost to Oakland (2-6). It was the Charger’s seventh win in a row at home versus the Raiders.

Once again Mark Sanchez apologized for his demeanor on the sideline. Only this time it was for hot dogging. Literally. Shaking off his worst start in his very young career, Sanchez ran for one touchdown and threw for another one before he took time to have a snack during the final minutes of the Jets 38-0 win on Sunday over the Raiders.

Justin Fargas helped Oakland control the clock with his 87 rushing yards, while the Raider’s defense was able to harass Donovan McNabb throughout the day in their 13-9 win on Sunday versus the Philadelphia Eagles. Tom Cable, Raiders coach said, we went out there and threw on a fight. We said, enough of this. Let’s play. That’s about all that you can say. There are no magical words for it.

Eli Manning, after he took his opening snap and made the play action fake, dropped back and then bounced his right heel to set up before firing a pass of nine yards to Darcy Johnson, tight end. Any concerns over the painful right heel of Eli’s got answered on that first play on Sunday in his 83rd start in a row. Manning threw two touchdown passes, leading the Giants on four touchdown drives on all four of their first possessions, as the Giants defeated the Raiders 44-7, giving New York a 5-0 record and their best start since 1990 when they won the Super Bowl.

For the very first time all season, Houston didn’t have to answer any questions regarding their terrible run defense or inability for stopping big plays. The defense of the Texans instead was able to celebrate their finest performance since the 2004 season as Houston beat the Raiders on Sunday 29-6. Houston allowed only 165 yards, the second fewest in the team’s history and fewest since they gave up 126 yards in a victory over Jacksonville nearly five years ago.