Just a couple months ago a lot of people were pretty excited

Alliance of American Football. It was set up to be a minor league of sorts for the NFL. And it positioned..."WhiteFanposts Fanshots Raiders StoriesScheduleRosterStatsYahoo Raiders NewsYahoo Raiders Team PageYahoo Raiders ReportYahoo Raiders Depth ChartYahoo Raiders TransactionsYahoo Raiders PhotosOdds About Masthead Community Guidelines StubHub ✕Silver & Black PridecastFormer Raiders player details his experience in now defunct AAF including players kicked out of hotel rooms left to find their way homeNew Antonio Brown Raiders Jersey ,16commentsPDTShareTweetShareShareFormer Raiders player details his experience in now defunct AAF including players kicked out of hotel rooms left to find their way homeKyle Terada-USA TODAY SportsJust a couple months ago a lot of people were pretty excited about he prospects of the new Alliance of American Football. It was set up to be a minor league of sorts for the NFL. And it positioned itself during a time we wouldn’t otherwise have football to watch. The players who joined the AAF were also excited about an opportunity to get back in the sight lines of the NFL so they could prove they belonged on a squad. Two months in, the big hopes of the league collapsed. And with it, hundreds of professional football players would be out of a job and literally on the street.There were several former Raiders who joined the AAF. One of them was Oni Omoile who spent two years with the Raiders in 2016-17. You might recall he is the cousin of former Raiders All Pro guard Kelechi Osemele. Omoile would never get the chance to see game action for the Raiders and over the past couple years has bounced his way around practice squads for several teams trying to earn his way in.Then the AAF came calling, and the journeyman lineman saw it as his best chance yet to get on the field as a professional player and was allocated to the Memphis Express.With the collapse of the league, I got Omoile onto the Silver & Black Pridecast to discuss his football career and his experience with the AAF during its brief existence. It was an eye opening interview.“I felt like it was a solid opportunity to see some playing time, because outside of preseason I hadn’t really seen any action at all. Plus I’d be earning a decent amount of money. AAF contract were probably comparable per game to NFL practice squad contracts so the money wasn’t bad, so that helped push my decision to go to that league,” said Omoile.“I don’t regret it, I just hate how it all ended.”The ending was abrupt and cold. The owner cut off all funding, including paying for the hotels of the players and they were on their own. That includes those players who were dealing with injuries sustained in games. Omoile was among those players dealing with an injury.“Our last game we ended up playing against the [Orlando] Apollos Womens Bo Jackson Jersey ,” Omoile recalled. “I was actually slated to start that game, but towards the end of the first quarter I took a shot to my jaw. . . they took me in and diagnosed me with a mild concussion. “The couple days after the game I was just at home, I couldn’t really go outside because the light was bothering me too much. And then Tuesday I go in for my daily checkup and I didn’t even... one of my friends tweeted it to me how the league was suspending operations. I was confused about that, so I went back to the facility and I see everyone getting out of meetings. I guess they had just told them the league was shutting down football operations. And then I was told we had to leave by the following morning, that we couldn’t stay at our hotels anymore. Some people had their stuff thrown out of their rooms into the hotel lobby. And one of our guys was from New York and he had to drive 17 hours. I was lucky, I only had to drive like 7 hour, 30 minutes or something, but I was still driving with concussion symptoms, which is very dangerous and I probably shouldn’t have done it, but I felt like I didn’t have a choice so I toughed it out. I ended up making it in one piece Bo Jackson Jersey , but we weren’t financially compensated for anything. . . guys had to pay for their own flights. It was just very poorly handled and it left a bad taste in my mouth.”Omoile and most of the other players in the AAF have essentially been playing or practicing football nonstop with no break for at least a year. He said after resting up his body he hopes to find his way back into an NFL camp to keep plugging away at finding his way onto an NFL roster.Follow @LeviDamien Coach Jon Gruden found another former television analyst to help him on his rebuild of the Oakland Raiders.The Raiders hired former NFL Network draft guru Mike Mayock as their new general manager on Monday.Gruden had been searching for a general manager after the team fired Reggie McKenzie earlier in a 4-12 season that ended with a 35-3 loss to Kansas City on Sunday. It was an underwhelming return to the sideline for Gruden, who got a 10-year, $100 million contract to return for a second stint in Oakland after spending nine seasons as an analyst at ESPN.Gruden inherited McKenzie, who won the 2016 NFL executive of the year award for his rebuilding job after the death of late owner Al Davis in 2011. The pairing didn’t work as Gruden frequently criticized McKenzie’s recent drafts and got rid of many of those players.Now the Raiders are hoping for a better working relationship between Gruden and Mayock, who was widely respected as a draft analyst since 2006 but now will be responsible for helping to make the picks.Mayock has no experience in an NFL front office but will work with Gruden on upgrading a scouting and personnel department that struggled to find impact players in recent years.The Raiders will have three first-round picks in April’s draft. Oakland has its own pick, which will be fourth in the draft, as well as first-rounders from Chicago and Dallas, which will be in the bottom 12 picks in the first round.Oakland acquired those picks by dealing McKenzie’s best two first-round picks from his seven-year tenure in Oakland. Star pass rusher Khalil Mack was traded to the Bears before the season for a package that included two first-round picks following a contract holdout, and receiver Amari Cooper was dealt during the season to the Cowboys for a 2019 first-rounder.Only 11 players drafted by McKenzie from 2012 to 2017 remain under contract with the Raiders, led by quarterback Derek Carr and right guard Gabe Jackson from the 2014 class https://www.raiderslockerroom.com/authentic-antonio-brown-jersey , and 2016 first-round safety Karl Joseph and 2017 first-round cornerback Gareon Conley.The Raiders will have plenty of holes to fill this offseason following another disappointing campaign. Oakland has just one winning season in the past 16 years, going 12-4 under Jack Del Rio in 2016.But otherwise the team has experienced nothing but losing, posting the second-worst record in the NFL since the start of the 2003 season.This season was up there with some of the worst in that stretch. The Raiders allowed their most points (467) in a season since 1961 and set marks for franchise worsts in sacks (13) and yards per play allowed (6.27) as the absence of an impact pass rusher like Mack was felt all season.The offense had its own problems as a line featuring rookie tackles Kolton Miller and Brandon Parker for most of the season failed to protect Carr. Oakland allowed 52 sacks, its most since 2006, and Carr often struggled to find the time to get the ball downfield.While Carr showed some signs of improvement late in the season as he grew more comfortable in Gruden’s system, the offense lacked playmakers on the outside and a game-breaking running back.The Raiders were barely competitive for much of the season, losing nine games by at least 14 points, tied for the most lopsided losses in the NFL since New England had 10 in 1990.Oakland was outscored by 177 points on the season, the second-worst mark in the NFL to Arizona.