Graney: Winning is only process Raiders should stress

This was Raiders general manager Mike Mayock during the first week of September.

“We feel like we need to be a playoff team this year, and I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. You guys are all going to put that in your headlines, and I understand it, but that’s what the expectation is.”

Message to Rich Bisaccia: That’s the process. Nothing else matters.

Bisaccia as interim head coach has made a habit of talking process, of how important those meetings and practices and mental reps are leading up to a game. That’s fine.

Everyone understands it all goes hand in hand. Nobody is getting better sitting around eating junk food all week.

But never lose sight of the bottom line. Not in this business. Not in this league.

The Raiders are 6-6 as they head to Kansas City for a game against the Chiefs on Sunday. That’s problem enough.

But this is also a silver and black cargo ship adrift at sea, off-field drama combined with on-field inconsistency.

I’m not sure anyone in the organization knows where to go next, except Arrowhead Stadium.

“If you’re results-oriented all the time, then you’re just looking at the scoreboard and spending your life up there,” Bisaccia said. “So there’s a process to what we’re trying to do. There’s a process to trying to improve every day.”

He never asked for the job. He took it under the most bizarre and unforeseen circumstances. But the Raiders shouldn’t be searching for an identity in Week 14.

Playoffs or bust

A season-long process is for really bad teams. Jacksonville. The Jets and Lions. Ones who are in obvious rebuilds, which is understood by management. That’s not the Raiders.

What they can’t yet do — no matter how up-and-down things have been — is lower those expectations Mayock stated months ago.

Before former head coach Jon Gruden resigned over insensitive emails; before wide receiver Henry Ruggs was released after being criminally charged in a car crash that killed a young woman; before cornerback Damon Arnette was released after a video appeared to show him threatening someone with a gun.

The Raiders right now are being afforded a 9 percent chance of advancing to the postseason, according to FiveThirtyEight. Certainly not the greatest of odds, but nothing a win Sunday can’t greatly improve. I know. It’s a long shot of perhaps massive proportions.

I also remember thinking the same thing before the Dallas game on Thanksgiving, and we all know how that turned out.

“My job as a leader of the team and organization is to take what everybody is saying,” quarterback Derek Carr said. “Take what Coach Bisaccia is saying and push that. Take what Mr. Mayock is saying and push that. Take what our other (team) leaders are saying and push that. For me, that has never changed. The process matters.”

Feeling the heat

There isn’t a soul inside the Raiders’ locker room who doesn’t want to win at the highest of levels. There is sacrifice. Then there is what an NFL player puts his body through just to remain employed. A tough game for tough men.

So while Carr agrees with Bisaccia that what happens between the final seconds of one game and the start of the next is vitally significant, he also stressed this week an overwhelming urgency to win. He feels it from Mayock and teammates and his own internal clock.

“That’s all I’ve cared about, wanting to win for this team,” Carr said. “When (wide receiver Hunter Renfrow) says that winning is all that matters at the end of the day, it really does. You have to produce. That’s what gives you a job in this league, but winning is what takes your team to the next level.”

That’s the process.

Nothing else matters.

Ed Graney is a Sigma Delta Chi Award winner for sports column writing and can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 7 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on Twitter.