Let me be clear: I hate the Raiders.  I have hated the Raiders ever since I was a small child, rooting for the Redskins who had, at the time, no discernible rivalry with the Raiders. I couldn’t stand the Cowboys, but if ever faced with my personal football Armageddon, I would have rooted for them to beat the Raiders in any Super Bowl.

Yes, my AFC team was the Broncos (making the 1989 Super Bowl a bonanza), but then, I had relatively good feelings about pretty much every AFC West team.  They were fun, free-wheeling old AFL teams.  I knew of the Chiefs from the trickeration they used in Super Bowl IV.  The Chargers had those cool, powder-blues, played in the sun, and were sunny, Southern California.  The Broncos, of course, were the Wild West personified.

Except the Raiders.  I needn’t rehearse here the moral failings of the franchise or their owner.  They wore black, embraced their own evil, and who was I to argue?

So why am I rooting for them to win today?

Because, at little-to-no-cost to the Chiefs, the Raiders can make history by winning every division game and failing to make the playoffs.  They have taken care of the most basic of business – dominating their division – and even that will have bought them nothing.  Outside the division, they have beaten only the woeful Rams and the Seahawks, which was probably just for old times’ sake.

Football, with all its mythical story lines, rarely provides this sort of poetic opportunity.

I will root for the Raiders to win, so that the failure of their season will be all the more exquisitely perfect.