Greetings, Raider fans! It is I, the holy diver, the rainbow in the dark, and the man on the silver mountain. I come to you today just snapping out of my alcohol-fueled stupor after the crushing disappointment of the Chiefs game last Thursday. What a giant pile of garbage that game was. The less said about it, the better.

So the Raiders move on to their next challenge, and with a victory they would clinch a playoff berth for the first time since 2002. That was nine head coaches ago. That was seventeen starting quarterbacks ago. It's been a long, dark road.

And so in the spirit of the times, I've consulted with the Great Beyond about the fate of the Raiders in their upcoming game. Here is the message I received:

"Well, that last game certainly was painful. For you and for Derek Carr's finger, and that spider wire he threw a football at. Who you got this week? The Chargers? Oh, bloody hell. Buckle your seatbelt.

Looking at the Chargers this year, you almost feel sorry for them. Their injury report is longer than Pacman Jones' rap sheet. The one name that hasn't been on it this year is Philip Rivers. Nobody really knows how many children Philip Rivers has, and that's because the number fluctuates regularly. Every time he wants to play an injury-free season, the number goes down by one. But that's alright, because he still has a quiver full.

The Chargers are essentially down to their third string. Let's look at some footage from the most recent Chargers game:

and here's a look at Joey Bosa trying his best, even after being knocked unconscious:

It's almost as if the pain of playing for a team as eternally irrelevant as the Chargers caused such strain and stress on the Charger players that their bodies simply give out. And why shouldn't they? Should the Charger players want to keep going and play sixteen road games?

At any given football game in San Diego, the stadium is 30% full of the opposing team's fans. This is doubly true when the visiting team is the Raiders, who own southern (and now northern) California and are really the only team that matters in the American West. When you drive to San Diego from the east through El Centro, do you know what you see? I can tell you. You don't see Chargers flags waving proudly. You don't see people wearing Chargers gear. You don't see billboards supporting the Chargers.

You see horse farms. Lots and lots of horse farms. The city's ballot measure to build a new stadium for the Chargers didn't come anywhere close to the two-thirds vote required, but they went about it all wrong. If they had just told the voters that a charger is actually a type of horse, the measure would have been approved unanimously. The citizens would have climbed over each other to spend their parents' money on a new stadium. This is because horse people are always crazy.

Here is a picture of the one Chargers fan in existence, Boltman, pleading with the San Diego City Council to keep the team in town:

Never mind that this is the greatest sports-related picture ever taken and makes Y.A. Tittle bleeding from the skull look like a motivational cat poster. Never mind that this makes Dee Snider testifying before Congress look like Dan Rather talking about soybean futures. The great thing about this picture is that it DIDN'T FUCKING WORK. But, if Boltman were dressed like this, it would have:

The City Council would have deliberated for about thirty seconds before giving the Chargers a new stadium and a shiny, sweet red apple.

But that isn't what happened. The city of San Diego told the Chargers to fuck off, and rightfully so. Now they get to go be the Jets to the Rams' Giants, and if that isn't the two shittiest teams in the league in the same building I don't know what is. We like to make fun of Philip Rivers around here, because he's a giant doofus who treats his wife like a person factory, but the only difference between the Chargers and the Browns is Philip Rivers and he doesn't get enough credit for that.

The Chargers are so bad as a franchise that nobody even bothers to make fun of them except me. People rag on the Lions and the Browns a lot for how bad they've been, but the Lions are really good now and the Browns were a championship-level team only thirty years ago. The Chargers have always been a disappointment. Even when Stan Humphries dragged them kicking and screaming to the Super Bowl to get ass-blasted by the 1994 49ers, they were a disappointment. This is the sort of preternatural level of awful that makes your city care so little about you that they actively want you to leave so they can get on with their lives.

The Chargers are, to the city of San Diego, a stripper girlfriend who looks really hot but gives you the clap. You found out she cheated on you, but she really wants to work it out. You and the voices in your head vote that she should get the fuck out of your apartment, and she agrees to leave as soon as she packs her stuff. Packing takes two years. You still have the clap and you always will. You also cannot get glitter out of your carpet no matter how often you vacuum.

The coach of the Chargers is still, inexplicably, Mike McCoy. He is so utterly perfect for the Chargers. Not only is he the last guy whose name you remember when trying to list the names of NFL head coaches, but he's completely boring, irrelevant and mediocre.

Imagine, if you will, Chargers head coach Mike McCoy loses eleven games in 2016. He is so distraught by his predicament and his impending termination by the team that he throws himself off the Coronado Bridge. He hits head first, but manages to survive. He is pulled to safety, but his rescuers notice that his face is horribly disfigured.

McCoy is taken to a local hospital, where his face is bandaged.

Chargers owner Dean Spanos comes to visit McCoy soon after.

"Mike, you're fired," Spanos tells McCoy. Mike is distraught and spirals into despair- not only at the disfigurement of his face, but also at his newfound unemployment. But soon the day comes for Mike that his bandages are to come off. Spanos arrives at the hospital to witness the event.

"As you know, Mike," says Spanos, "We'll be moving into the beautiful new Los Angeles stadium soon. We need a coach who will exemplify what it means to be a successful football team in a market as competitive as Los Angeles. I've got a few coaches in mind..."

Slowly, carefully, the bandages are removed from the face of Mike McCoy. Spanos is amazed at the face of the man before him.

"Mike," says Spanos breathlessly. "You're hired."

Raiders win, 34-24."