The Oakland Raiders' reward for upsetting the AFC apple cart Sunday is zero rest, reporting back immediately for two days of full practice, and a Wednesday flight to Dallas. They have the afternoon game against the Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day, so little recovery time for any sore Raiders with the stuffing still beaten out of them.
"You’re not quite back to where you want to be, but really we take pretty good care of our bodies this week in practice," tight end Zach Miller told Jerry McDonald's Raiders blog in the Contra Costa Times. "You’re pretty good by the time you get to game time. If you get any ding though, that’s tough to get back from in such a short time."
If this game gets the Raiders any ding, then they are now free to move around a two-game winning streak. These Raiders haven't won two consecutive games all season.
Jerry McDonald adds up the awful combined scores of the two games when the team was coming off a win, and computes, "Opponents 61, Raiders 3."
"All I know is the bottom line is we have to have a quick turnaround this week," defensive end Jay Richardson told the Times. "We’ve got Dallas in 72 hours, or whatever, we got to go there on Thanksgiving."
Richardson backs up Richard Seymour, who could use the rest before playing again. Seymour is questionable after leaving Sunday's win with a back injury.
Joe Kukura is freelance writer whose idea of "short rest" is the 6 p.m. nap following the afternoon game on Thanksgiving Day.
