The appeal of the Oakland Raiders extends well beyond the Bay Area. It’s not about geography. It’s about mentality.
Kansas University middle linebacker and Oakland native Joe Mortensen calls himself a Raiders fan. Let’s consult the checklist and see if he qualifies.
A Raiders fan must:
He is to football players what Lt. Vic Mackey, portrayed by actor Michael Chiklis on FX’s “The Shield,” is to TV characters. Not familiar with Lt. Mackey’s work? At the end of one episode, a punk criminal so disgusted him that the cop dragged him into the kitchen, turned on the stove, and shoved his face onto the burning coils.
That’s not to say Mortensen goes around burning faces, but he plays with that sort of edge. He was born to play middle linebacker.
Asking Mortensen to play outside linebacker, as Kansas did last season, would be akin to asking Lt. Mackey to sit behind a desk eight hours a day.
“He’s the most tenacious linebacker I’ve ever been around,” sophomore running back Jake Sharp said. “You think of a linebacker profile, you think crazy, just ready to destroy everything that moves. That’s Joe Mortensen. It’s awesome to have that kind of guy on the team. That kind of thing spreads like wildfire across the team as far as attitude.”
Yet, it takes more than attitude to develop into a quality Big 12 football player. It requires attention to detail, wisdom, sound technique.
“What Joe has done now is he’s taken the physical part of his game and has really made himself a student of the game, and that’s something that was missing,” KU coach Mark Mangino said. “Joe is a tough, hard-playing guy. … He thought just knocking people down and making tackles were the bottom line. Now he’s really dedicated himself to being a student of the game.”
Mortensen said he blitzed whenever he felt like it in high school, nearly every down.
Last season, dropping into pass coverage was a weakness.
At times during a home loss to Oklahoma State, Mortensen found himself mismatched against Adarius Bowman on his way to a Big 12-record 300-yard receiving day.
“I got burned on a wheel route,” Mortensen said. “I remember that play for sure. He’s a great athlete. This year, I’ll be looking for him on crossers. I can hit him on a crosser when he’s not looking.”
The thought of that left Mortensen giggling because that’s what Raiders fans do when they think about enemy players getting tagged.
“I’m a Brian Urlacher fan,” Mortensen said of the Chicago Bears linebacker. “Also, I’m a (Baltimore Ravens’ linebacker) Ray Lewis fan. … It’s amazing watching NFL (linebackers), their footwork. Ray Lewis, I don’t think there was a tackle (Monday night) that he wasn’t around the ball on.”
Mortensen watches for more than loud hits now.
“I’m watching how long it takes them to read and react, how they’re taking on blocks, their hands, how they’re running to the ball,” he said.
Mortensen’s no finished product, but he’s adding finish by the day.
