NFL 25 Dream Teams that ended up being failures
By Nick Villano
NFL 25 Dream Teams that ended up being failures: 5. 2003 Oakland Raiders
We’re starting to get into those REAL dream team types that really just fell flat right on their face. Let’s start with the 2003 Oakland Raiders. They bolstered the best offense in the league on its way to the 2002-03 Super Bowl. A lot of the Jon Gruden era Raiders were wearing off. Bill Callahan is not the coach that Gruden was, and that really showed itself in 2003.
The Raiders started the season 2-3, and then they lost reigning MVP Rich Gannon to a shoulder injury. He was placed on injured reserve, and the Raiders were forced to hand the offense off to Marquis Tuiasosopo. It didn’t go well. The Raiders scored 270 points on the season, good for sixth-worst in the NFL.
The defense had no way to stop the other team on a weekly basis. It probably didn’t help that the offense couldn’t keep a hold of the ball for very long. The defense did allow just under 24 points per game, which was one of the worst in the NFL. It was just a cataclysmic failure of epic proportions.
Things just kept getting worse for the Raiders. Gannon came back the next season to play under new head coach Norv Turner. He had to compete with Kerry Collins, but he ended up winning out the job. Then he got injured, and the Raiders fell apart again.