The Raiders haven't been to the playoffs in a very long time. You have to go all the way back to the 2002 season, when league MVP Rich Gannon guided the Silver & Black to a Super Bowl appearance.
A useful perspective tool on the passage of time can come through the study of popular culture. Take it away, Twitter person!
Takeaways:
» Yes folks, this was Ground Zero of the Nickelback insurgence of the United States of America. Ten years later, there would be petitions to stop Kroeger and Co. from performing the halftime show at Ford Field on Thanksgiving. That petition failed, but Nickelback haven't been heard from since. Maybe they never made it out of Detroit?
» Ashanti shows up three times in the top 15! Ashanti was like a really, really raw prototype of Rihanna that was put into permanent storage sometime in 2005.
» Never forget that Fred Durst once believed Puddle of Mudd lead singer Wes Scantlin was the next Kurt Cobain.
» "A Thousand Miles" is the most piano-sounding piano song ever. "Hey Vanessa, just hit every key as many times as possible for four minutes and then we'll overdub it 700 times."
» Have you gone back and listened to how bad P. Diddy is as a rapper? Of course not ... but you should. It is mental.
» Ja Rule, man. He did it. It was an insane formula and it was never built to last, but man, he did it. "Ain't It Funny" also features the first -- and one presumes -- only Lee Harvey Oswald reference to ever grace the Billboard Top 10.