Posted by
Steve on Tuesday, October 11, 2011 12:10:25 PM
Al Davis of the Raiders died over the weekend. I would not be telling the truth if I said I was sorry to see his passing. My football team is the Denver Broncos. The one team we hate the most is the Raiders. The person that personifies the Raiders more than anyone else is, Al Davis.
At one time, Al Davis was on the cutting edge of football. The Raiders were one of the leading teams in the league, sorry to say. But something changed in Al Davis and football. Football changed and evolved into a passing league. Al Davis was still stuck in the 1970’s where he saw all of his success.
Al Davis is one of those owners that has to have his fingers in every pie. He dominates during the NFL draft. So, the Raiders draft players that Al Davis likes, rather than players that would help them win. Al Davis dominates the coach, so the best coaches won’t coach for the Raiders. The only coaches that will coach for Al Davis today are the ones getting a start and are desperate or ones that have worn out their welcome elsewhere. When a coach shows some promise and starts to win, Al Davis figures out a way to get rid of him. That is why the Raiders have been one of the worst teams in the league for the past 10-15 years.
The Broncos used to be patsies for the Raiders in the early years of the AFL and when they first joined the NFL. The Raiders regularly won both games each year. That is why they built up a huge lead in wins. That huge lead has come closer to 50/50 in recent years, but the Raiders still lead.
As a Bronco fan, I was glad to see Al Davis in the Raiders owner’s box. Whenever he was there, I knew the Raiders were going to put a mediocre to poor football team on the field each year. Now that he has gone, the anchor that was holding the Raiders back is now gone. I would expect the Raiders to return to respectability here in the next few years as the disasters of Al Davis drafts diminish. Al Davis is famous for drafting players with blazing speed and stone fingers. For those of you who do not know, that means they are very fast, but cannot catch the ball. The quarterbacks he drafted had extremely strong arms, but were dumber than a fence post. They could throw the ball 100 yards on the fly, but could not figure out how to read defenses or run the offense. Those kind of picks were so common, you could count on it during the NFL draft.
Al Davis did have a great story. He went from coaching the team on the field to owning the team. That is something I don’t think anyone else has done. George Halas owned the team, then decided to coach, so it is not the same thing. Al Davis had no ownership in the team when he coached. He bought the team a few years after he finished coaching. He was instrumental in hiring some coaches of Hispanic and Black origin before anyone else. But they could not win with the Al Davis system any more than any other coach could win with Al Davis in the owner’s box. Al Davis was the wrench in many things that the NFL wanted to do as well. They will give lip service to his glories, but are secretly glad that he is gone. In short, the NFL will be a better league with Al Davis gone. This is my honest opinion. Of course, I am biased as a Broncos fan. But, I think a few years from now, all will acknowledge that I was correct in my assessment.