Matt Leinart Heads to Oakland for Football Game, Verbal Abuse

The Cardinals will travel to Oakland tonight to face the Raiders. It's Week 3 of the preseason, so this game takes on more significance than the previous two, and there's still plenty to be determined. Chief among them: is Matt Leinart really Arizona's starting quarterback?

Head coach Ken Whisenhunt is still undecided (or, at the very least, he's not talking if he has made a decision), but these things will be sorted out by Sept. 7. That's the hope, anyway.

In the meantime, Leinart will get the start against the Raiders, and he hopes to fare better than he did in his two previous trips to The Hole.

Two years ago, Leinart's lone regular-season start in Oakland was a disaster as the Raiders tortured the Cards' offense all game and began the countdown to coach Dennis Green's firing. Last season, the Cards opened the preseason on the road against the Raiders, and Leinart finished 5-of-11 for 50 yards while showing some signs that he wasn't particularly sharp in coach Ken Whisenhunt's new offense.

But it gets worse: Leinart has also been the victim of verbal abuse, which is so out of character for Raiders fans that I wonder if he's making the whole story up for attention.

"I remember last year a 7- or 8-year-old giving me something he shouldn't be giving me (verbally)," Leinart said. "I was like, 'God, you've got to be kidding me.' I heard a whole bunch of stuff, personal stuff that I can't repeat. They are crazy there ... they do not care, and they are right up on you."

Ah, yes, I remember that now -- Nick Lachey cried himself to sleep for a week after that. On the upside, at least it wasn't Cards' fans dropping f-bombs on Leinart like he was an underachieving former first-round pick. Or worse.