Raiders : Flores Schedules a Long Practice Today Because of the Short Week

The Raiders came out of their opening day whitewash of the Jets with no new injuries. They would be in near-peak condition, except that they have one more full day to prepare for Thursday night’s game against the Chiefs at Kansas City.

The Chiefs are also 1-0, having trounced the Saints in New Orleans, 47-27. Kansas City was 8-8 last season, but finished with consecutive victories over the Denver Broncos, Seattle Seahawks and San Diego Chargers.

Monday is normally a light day for the Raiders, but this Monday they had meetings and a light drill. Tuesday, they’re usually off. Today they’ll combine defensive day, which is normally Wednesday, and offensive day, which is normally Thursday. On Wednesday, they’ll fly to Kansas City.

The Raiders didn’t like the scheduling and protested it.

“Thursday has always been tough,” Coach Tom Flores said. “But somebody has to play and it just so happens it’s us. We’ve done it before. We played in San Diego and clinched our division that night (winning, 42-10, in 1983). San Diego was not a long flight. This is a three-hour flight, with a two-hour time difference. But, we’ve got to do it.”

The Raiders are 22-3-1 on Monday nights and 2-0 on Thursday.

The only Raider held out Sunday, left tackle Shelby Jordan who has a stomach pull, worked with the first unit Monday. Kenny King and Dokie Williams, both been listed as questionable for the Jets’ game, played.

Said Howie Long, after Sunday’s game: “One thing we didn’t want to do was get into pushing and shoving with them. We made that mistake (three) years ago (in the playoff loss to the Jets) and we lost perspective. I think this Raider team you see now will be more intelligent. We had one bad penalty. I’ll take one bad penalty a game, compared to what we’ve had since I got here.”

That flag was thrown against safety Mike Davis, who was pushed after a play by Jets’ tight end Mickey Shuler. Davis put his hands at his side and looked back toward an official. But then he turned around and pushed Shuler in the face. The official saw that. The Jets had just failed on a third-down play but were thus allowed to retain possession.

Said Davis Monday, laughing: “Tell people I’m a nice guy who just got caught up in the emotion.”

He’s a nice guy who just got caught up in the emotion.

Flores, asked if the team had been told to cut down on penalties and fights, said: “We’ve had our share of penalties. You don’t ever want to take away the aggressiveness of a team. But you have to play intelligent football.”