Greetings, Raider fans! It is I, the man with a silk shirt and a top hat, who does not worry because my wallet's fat, Raiderdamus the Great and Powerful. Not only am I fresh off yet another completely accurate prediction of a Raiders victory, but I also am in first place in the Silver & Black Pride staff Pick 'Em. I'm so pretty. I'm a bad man. I can't be beat.

So here the Raiders are, at 8-2, having guaranteed a non-losing season and a single victory away from securing their first winning season since 2002. Will they get there this week? Only the Great Beyond knows for sure. To that end, I have once again entreated his wisdom, and here is the message I was given:

"Well hello there! Yet again the Raiders won, just as I said they would. There surely are none left who doubt the word of the Great Beyond. The Raiders took care of business in Mexico, and return home to face, who now? The Panthers? Very well. Here we go.

The Panthers have been around since 1995 and have been to the Super Bowl twice. This is more times than the Browns, Lions, Jaguars, Texans, Jets, Cardinals, Buccaneers, Falcons and Saints. Their record of 0-2 is halfway to the King of Losers Championship held by the Buffalo Bills and Minnesota Vikings, who are 0-4 in Super Bowl competition.

It's not just that the Panthers lost two Super Bowls that pisses me off- it's who they lost them to. They lost the first one to Tom Brady and the Patriots, and the second to the shambling corpse of Peyton Manning and the Broncos. The Denver defense was extremely good, yes, but that Super Bowl team looked like the 1985 Bears were playing their backups on offense. Any team with a pulse could have beat the Broncos last season. Hell, the Raiders did once.

Carolina always seems to forget something when they build a team. The first time around, they forgot to get a quarterback who was better than Jake Delhomme. He is sort of like the ugly girl at the prom- all the good ones are taken, but the slow dance is starting and beggars can't be choosers. This time around, Carolina forgot to sign an offensive line. Here is a quick look at Cam Newton's protection last season:

And it's even worse than that this year. Carolina opted not to improve their line, deciding instead to keep Michael Oher, who at this point in his career is roughly as effective as a blind side of beef. This is how we go from Happy Yogurt Spokesman Cam:

to Angry Concussed Cam Newton who would like to throw Roger Goodell into a wood chipper Fargo-style:

In a normal circumstance, I'd say that Cam Newton had a right to be angry with the treatment he's received from opposing teams and the league. I'd say that nobody should be beaten up as much as Cam has been, and the league should do something about it.

But then I think, screw Cam Newton. He deserves this because he is a miserable, sniveling piece of shit. It isn't the NFL's job to protect Cam Newton. You know whose job it LITERALLY is to protect him? His offensive linemen. You would never in a million years see anyone do to Derek Carr what has been done to Newton. Donald Penn, Rodney Hudson, Austin Howard, Gabe Jackson and Kelechi Osemele would beat anyone who took a cheap shot at Carr within an inch of their life, never mind whatever flags they got for doing so. Those linemen love Derek Carr and will protect him as if he was their own family. Apparently, nobody loves Cam Newton.

Urban Meyer loved Cam Newton so much he kicked him off the Florida Gators team for stealing laptops. Cam Newton's own father loved Cam so much he pimped him out to the University of Auburn for a paltry $180,000. What do you have to say about that, Cam?

I can't wait until Khalil Mack has his own ongoing investigation as to whether a quarterback can puke out his own spleen on the football field, you arrogant sack of crap. The country already completed their investigation as to whether or not you have any heart. Here were the findings:

Looks like the results were conclusive. Cam Newton has a serious problem getting on the ball, a problem shared by several of my former girlfriends.

Of course this sort of passive arrogance is par for the course with this misbegotten franchise whose chief rival in the area is the most disappointing college football team of all time, the Clemson Tigers. The Panthers are a team so out of touch with reality that their owner, the wizened and addled Jerry Richardson, erected a statue of himself outside their stadium. Many teams have statues of former great players or civic heroes, people important to the culture of the community. But Richardson put a fucking monument to himself like he's the Pharaoh of North Carolina:

This statue was probably built with taxpayer funds gleaned from the sale of tobacco products. North Carolina is just the sort of place where the state will sell its own people a product that can and will give them cancer, tax those purchases, and then use the funds to build vanity projects and pay for advertisements to tell the people not to buy the thing that gives them cancer.

Of course, you'd need to read the plaque to know that this is a statue of Richardson, so half the people of North Carolina likely have no idea it's him at all. They probably just think it's Terry Bowden.

This is a team that let Pro Bowl corner Josh Norman go because they didn't want to pay him. Are you kidding me? They built a literal statue of their owner, but couldn't find a few million extra dollars for a Pro Bowler at a position of need? This sort of irresponsible activity is why the Panthers are nothing and will always be nothing. Norman is currently helping Washington be not-terrible, which is more than we can say for anyone on the Panthers. I hope their entire team falls into a sewer.

The Panthers do have some weapons on offense, and by weapons I mean "people who are tall". Being tall is the chief skill of Panthers receivers Devin Funchess and Kelvin Benjamin, who are now both so healthy that we can only imagine that the god of torn ACLs is about to pay them a visit.

Oakland really has to watch out for the most dangerous player on the Panthers' offense, Greg "G-Reg" Olsen, noted member of the 7th Floor Krew and best player from the 2005 Miami Hurricanes. For those of you who don't know, the 7th Floor Krew were a group of Miami players, most notably Olsen, Brandon Meriweather and Jon Beason, who lived on the seventh floor of their dorm building and due to their fame and social status were subject to wild escapades with the female members of the Miami student body. They released a rap song about their exploits, in which Greg Olsen's flow is so strong and his rhymes so fresh that one is forced to consider him the greatest rapper of all time. Please note that this song is extremely NSFW. You have been warned.

The Carolina fanbase is as shallow and deluded as their franchise. Most people in the Carolinas are fans of other teams like the Ravens, Giants or Steelers, and emerge like Homer Simpson from the hedges whenever the Panthers are winning. At this point, they probably have fewer fans than the Jaguars.

But we do know that the Panthers have their die-hard fans, including this guy, a man so white his rapping makes Greg Olsen look like Afrika Bambaataa:

You all know this man. He's your drunk uncle who spent all Thanksgiving telling you how the government should keep its hands off our socialized healthcare. He's the guy at work who complains every year that Pete Rose isn't in the Hall of Fame. He idles his truck at 4 AM for two hours. This man is 63% human and 37% Miller High Life. He cuts in line at the petting zoo. He parks in the handicapped space at the gym.

And still, every time I see the Panthers lose another game, I think of this man. I think about how sad he must be. And then I drink a cool glass of water and pretend it is full of his tears, because they are delicious.

In conclusion, Carthage must be destroyed.

Raiders win, 34-24."