Raider Stories...

[Angry Pope]

These are fun to read....Part I....

Tuesday, November 5, 2002
Updated: November 6, 1:45 PM ET

Understanding Madden, Part 1

By Pat Toomay
Special to Page 2

When I met John Madden on my first day of Raiders training camp, in July 1977, I was struck by his ease and affability, but I was most impressed by his thoughtfulness. Before arriving in Santa Rosa, I'd driven from Dallas to Tampa and back, flown cross-country, taken a "physical" and driven another 60 miles to camp headquarters at the El Rancho Tropicana Motel. Remarkably, Madden was not only aware of my extensive traveling, but he was willing to alter camp routine to accommodate it. I was exhausted and he knew it. "Take the rest of the afternoon off," he'd said. In all my years in the league, I'd never encountered such flexibility in a head coach; I never knew such leadership existed.

In the days and weeks that followed, other qualities surfaced that differentiated Madden from his peers. Idiosyncratic behavior by players that would have driven other coaches nuts was greeted with a shrug and a chuckle. During film sessions, which many coaches regarded as an opportunity to humiliate or shame, Madden kept criticism generic, rarely naming names. Under no circumstances would he publicly condemn a player's character. That didn't mean he wouldn't chew somebody out for making a mistake in practice, because he would. But even those outbursts would be tempered by a wink and a nudge, as if the whole thing were a kind of joke. Who was this guy? I began to wonder. What experiences could have forged such a humane perspective?

My cynical friends thought I was being sentimental. Echoing hardline Raider critics, they thought Madden had no choice but to deal with his players in the way he did because it was a constraint of his job. After all, they'd argue, Madden was only 31 when Al Davis hired him as linebackers coach; he was only 33 when he took over the team. So he was just a kid. Moreover, he was a big, unsophisticated lug of a kid, who had no pedigree and no real head coaching experience. Thus, he was a perfect candidate for the manipulative Davis. He was mere putty in Davis' hands. What else could he have been?

My cynical friends would admit that Madden knew football, that he was no dummy by any stretch. But they maintained that if Madden wanted the Raiders head coaching job, he had to play ball with Davis. It was as simple as that. Madden had to implement Davis' philosophy at every turn. Was it Madden who loved wild-card players? No, it was Davis who loved 'em, because Davis was a wild card. So Madden had no choice but to be the good father to those nutcases. He was the way he was because he had to be. And there was a cost. Where did I think those ulcers came from that drove him out of the game?


For a while, this argument snagged me because I knew at least part of it was true, and some of my own experiences on the team made me wonder about the other part. Madden's youth and inexperience were indisputable. Insiders had it that, at first, Madden sat in awe as Davis taught him. Madden's expression was, "What better counsel can I get than Al Davis?" Later, Madden would describe the relationship in language that both flattered and distanced Al. "If I had an idea, I had to sell it," Madden would say. "But it's the same with Al. He didn't tell me, he sold me."

This didn't exactly slam the door on the issue. In an interview with Inside Sports after he retired, Madden exhibited the kind of sensitivity one is forced to develop when working for a powerful, unpredictable superior. Said Madden: "Al knows the football, the rules, the ticket situation, the radio contracts, the advertising. He'd have a mood for each one -- he would create his own moods. A mood for drafting, a mood for trading, a mood for negotiating. One mood just kicks right into another. You can simplify a simple person. You can't simplify Al Davis."

Madden also observed that Davis didn't have "the tools that are visible to people to show feelings. Once," Madden said, "we won a big game and my son Mike was in the locker room. He was in fifth or sixth grade. Al said to him, 'What do you want? Name anything. A business? A motorcycle? A store?' That's how he would try to show it."

Were the cynics right? Was Madden's underlying attitude of patience, caring and understanding a kind of pretense? A mere act necessitated by a lack of control?

Of course, the answer to this question would end up being a resounding NO, but enough contradictory information was floating around at the time to create doubt in anyone who was interested in the issue. For example, when John Matuszak showed up wasted for the '77 AFC championship game and was allowed to play even though he was struggling, many wondered how Madden would have responded had the club's power equation been different. A related incident involved popular defensive coordinator and former Baltimore Colts great Don Shinnick, who was vociferous in lobbying for a hardline response to such incidents as Matuszak's flop. Shinnick's lobbying -- on this and other matters -- was done privately, behind closed doors, but Shinnick's input was largely ignored. Eventually, Shinnick rebelled.


Davis was tolerant of nutcases but not rebellion by coaches.
I suppose it was how Shinnick rebelled that did him in, because Don was inspired in the mode he chose to express himself, appropriating Raider insouciance to make his point. It happened during games. Rebuffed in his efforts to effect things, coordinator Shinnick, rather than staying focused on the game, as most coordinators would, retreated to the bench after calling defensive signals. There, flipping his hat backward hip-hop style, Shinnick would dig out of his pocket a hot dog or a bag of peanuts. Grinning, he would munch away until somebody called him for the next series. Man, these Raiders are something, I thought the first time I saw this, but of course I was ignorant of the underlying politics. Inevitably, it all ended badly. Asked by Davis to resign at the end of the '77 season, Shinnick refused, saying we'd had a great year and he'd done nothing wrong. Davis responded by firing him. Sadly, Shinnick was unable to land another NFL job.

My own interest in this drama was blunted by distance, as I was at home in Dallas, enjoying the offseason, when Shinnick was dismissed. My interest sharpened, however, when Davis replaced Shinnick with former Denver defensive coordinator Myrel Moore. Moore was an exponent of the 3-4 defense and was considered an architect of Denver's vaunted "Orange Crush." Being a purist, however, Moore did not include in his scheme rushing four down linemen in passing situations. This meant that our designated rusher strategy, which had yielded 17 sacks from my position the previous season, was going out the window. Needless to say, this made me a little nuts. It also scared me because, despite the year I'd had, suddenly my job was in jeopardy, as I was the antithesis of a 3-4 lineman.

cont'd...

[Angry Pope]

cont'd...

In a 3-4 alignment, defensive linemen play nose up on their offensive counterparts. Assigned a "two-gap" responsibility, their job is to neutralize the offensive player and be prepared to slide off to either side and make a tackle. Physically, the ideal 3-4 lineman is a fireplug like Warren Sapp, with incredible strength and leverage. A 4-3 end, on the other hand, can be quicker, lighter and more agile, since he only has to control a shoulder of an offensive tackle. For me, playing nose up on the likes of Art Shell, Leon Gray or John Hannah was more than a challenge. Giving away 50 or 60 pounds, as I routinely did, it was a fate worse than death. I simply couldn't sustain the head-up pounding meted out by these much larger players.

Of course, this radical shift in strategy was not explicitly announced, but as we got into training camp, it quickly became obvious what was going to happen. Startled by what I felt was the absurdity of chucking a proven defense, I went to Madden. After explaining my confusion over what our owner intended by making this switch, I blurted out the question that was haunting me: "What in the hell does he expect from me?"

"You'd better worry about what I expect from you," Madden replied.

He was right, of course. If this was the situation, then I'd better adjust to it or I would be out of a job. Still, the whole thing struck me as absurd, so I began to reconsider the arguments of my cynical friends, or at least to re-evaluate my notion of the club's power structure, so that I would be better equipped to understand who I needed to please. Where did Madden stand on Shinnick's dismissal? I wondered. Could he really be in favor of chucking our defense?

Such was the state of things as we opened the '78 preseason. On a certain level, the club was reeling. A blown call by an official during the '77 AFC championship game had cost us a second consecutive appearance in the Super Bowl, a game that we would have won, I believed, since historically Dallas had difficulty matching up with the Raiders. As if that wasn't enough, a popular coach had been replaced by an enemy turncoat who, with Davis' blessing, was intent on changing everything. Adding fuel to the fire was the rumor that Madden, during a May minicamp, had been hospitalized with ulcers.


Compromising one's principles -- and being forced to live with that compromise -- can take a toll on one's health, and this was the cynics' take on Madden's condition: He was buckling under the stress of working for a megalomaniacal boss. In reflecting on his situation later, Madden would be less specific in his assessment, attributing his persistent pain simply to "coaching." In a memoir written after he retired, Madden admitted that he started thinking about quitting after winning Super Bowl XI. At that point, he said, he had only one more ambition -- to win 100 games in his first 10 years. After the '77 season, when he had 94 regular-season victories, he realized that no coach in the NFL or AFL had ever done that, especially with the same team. As it developed, he won 103, but during that final '78 season, as Madden put it, "I began to burn out."

At the time, you could tell something was wrong. No longer the blustering, confident "Pinky" of yore, Madden seemed agitated and fretful. During practice, he would chew on towels and would frequently produce a brown bottle from which he would gulp a chalky white substance that would leave residue on his lips. In the locker room, on planes, in the office, spasms of vomiting became routine.

In the vacuum of Madden's distraction, the new coach, Myrel Moore, began to assert himself and one player, Ted Hendricks, took offense. Mocking Moore's emphasis on weight training, Hendricks had his own weight rack constructed and erected on the practice field. With empty cans for dumbbells and with strategically placed beverage holders, the contraption was a hilarious addition to the other equipment arrayed there, but it was also a biting reminder of the old Raider spirit that Moore had been hired to vanquish.

Of course, it was tempting to view all of this as petty squabbling among twisted royals. After all, we were among the league's elite, a success by any standard -- why couldn't we get a grip? Perspective was what was required, but nobody could have anticipated the incident that would restore it nor the devastation it would leave in its wake. For those of us directly involved, life in pro football would never be the same.

Coming Attractions: In Part 2 of his look at what makes John Madden tick, Pat Toomay talks about Madden's response to Darryl Stingley's paralyzing injury and the former Raider coach's famous fear of flying ... and explains the powerful and humanizing connection between the two.

Former NFL defensive end Pat Toomay played in the league for 10 years (1970-79) with the Cowboys, Bills, Bucs and Raiders. He is the author of two books, The Crunch and the novel On Any Given Sunday.

[Angry Pope]

Part II......

Part 2: A Madden In Full

By Pat Toomay
Special to Page 2


Editor's Note: This is Part 2 of Pat Toomay's two-part look at former Raiders coach John Madden. In Part 1, Toomay explained what it was like to play for Madden as the Raiders defended during their first Super Bowl title in the 1977 season.

The exhibition game in which Darryl Stingley was paralyzed was played in Oakland. It was one of those sloppy exhibitions played early in the preseason, when everyone's legs are dead and everyone's minds are numb.

It was one of those games in which everything is out of sync, out of kilter, a comedy of missed passes, overthrown balls, dropped punts, fumbled snaps, unnecessary penalties. That's the way it is when too many nervous rookies vie with too many aging vets for too few open positions on their respective teams. That's the way it is when new systems have been implemented and nobody's sure how to execute them.

This confusion and uncertainty, a near lethargy, also afflicted the organizations. The Patriots were in the second week of a West Coast road trip. The previous week they had played in Los Angeles, and then practiced near San Francisco. Normal people, with responsibilities in their communities, would find a reason to go home. So it was with the New England team physician, perhaps, for he departed after the L.A. game, leaving the club without an orthopedist for the game in Oakland.

Because of his absence, game day found both teams under the medical supervision of our two physicians: Dr. Robert Rosenfeld, a Beverly Hills orthopedist, and Dr. Donald Fink, a local internist.

Dr. Rosenfeld was a gruff, insensitive man, whose typical response to a player's injury was, "You're OK, it's just a bruise." (In 1987, Dr. Rosenfeld's operating privileges were suspended at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he practiced, because of a high complication rate and an unusually large number of malpractice cases.)

Doc Fink wasn't much better. Though affable and in possession of a medical license, he was lugging around players' medical records in the trunk of his car. The plaque on Doc Fink's office door read: "Investments." His physicals sometimes consisted of a single question: "How do you feel?" If the answer was, "Good," that was all he needed to hear.

This was the backdrop, then, of that fateful game. The ancient Greeks would see hubris here, on an epic scale. They would warn us. In fact, there was a sense of warning on the sidelines. Only a play or two before Stingley went down, John Madden, who was growing more and more upset because all night long the Patriots had been probing the Raiders middle with passes, turned to the guy beside him and said, "They'd better stop doing that or somebody's going to get hurt!"

It happened in the second quarter -- a hurried pass launched over the middle for Stingley, who was slanting into the secondary. It was high and too far in front of him. Leaving his feet, Stingley was prone in the air, arms outstretched, as the ball sailed past him. In my memory, there he hangs.

For his part, Jack Tatum seemed fooled. Having started back to his right, he pulled up as the ball was released. The receiver, he realized, was coming from the opposite direction. Jack turned, but managed only three or four strides before the action was upon him. He crouched over, sort of leaning into Stingley as the Patriots receiver drifted toward him. They collided. Stingley, in an awkward position, fell to the turf. There was no explosive hit. No flying helmet. Yet Stingley was down. He wasn't moving. He wasn't getting up.

Trainers from both teams rushed out on the field. They tended to Darryl for a long time. Then an ambulance was summoned. Darryl was carefully loaded up and carted off. The game resumed, but under a sickening pall.

After the game, Madden went directly to the hospital. It was Madden's first instinct to go to Stingley. At the hospital, Stingley had been found to have fractured vertebrae in his neck and was being fitted with a halo brace to stabilize the injury. Our physicians, thankfully, had risen to the occasion. Having overseen a safe transport, they had summoned the appropriate specialists. Experts were now at hand.

But even at the hospital something was dissonant, out of sync. Expecting to find himself among concerned New England officials, Madden found himself alone. No one from the Patriots was there. Not the owner. Not the coach. No one.

Grabbing a phone, Madden called the Oakland airport. Immediately, he was patched through to the New England charter, taxiing out to take off. A more than animated discussion followed. The plane returned to the gate. The business manager was put off.


In the hospital, Stingley was conscious, as doctors worked to fit the halo. Having donned surgeon's garb, Madden appeared beside him, leaning close. "Everything's going to be all right," he whispered. If only it had been true.

Meanwhile, a second disaster was averted. On the New England charter, now airborne and headed east, players were struggling to understand Stingley's injury when an engine started gushing fuel. Immediately, the flight was diverted to San Francisco. A dozen fire trucks lined the runway as the plane touched down.

In the days and weeks that followed, Madden visited Stingley, if not daily, then as often as he could. During one visit, Madden discovered a malfunction in Stingley's ventilator. In summoning a nurse to fix the problem, Madden might have saved Stingley's life.

Football is about assault and survival, as much as it is about anything. Collisions are where each play starts and ends. Grace exists on the field to elude savagery. Men are meant to smash into each other, the harder the better. But they are supposed to get back up, if not instantly, then in seconds, or minutes. After an injury, they come back. It might be months later, or even a year later. But they come back.

When this fails to happen, as it did in the case of Darryl Stingley, our frailty shows through the masquerade of pads and numbers and facemasks and helmets, the fake armor of invincibility. In such a moment, we don't like what we see. An explanation outside the norms of the game is needed, and so scapegoats are sought. Disturbing feelings are pushed aside. Only the rarest among us grasp the depth of our frailty and still love the game. Is John Madden such a man? I think so. And if I'm right, it all revolves around something that opened him up a long time ago. Something that made him acutely aware of his own vulnerability.

It took me a long time to find out what it was. After that horrible night in Oakland, I scoured books, read newspapers and magazines, looking for the transformative event I suspected was buried in his past. I found only tantalizing clues.

One was an incident that occurred during his first year as head coach at Hancock Junior College. Like most coaches, Madden thought players should be serious before games; he couldn't accept it when some players turned on music or told jokes. Before one game Madden yelled at his worst offender: "Hey, football is serious!" Off went the music. The jokes stopped. Everyone got serious as Madden wanted them to be.

Before the next game, however, the player who'd been scolded stepped into Madden's office. He explained there were all different kinds of personalities on the team, that while everybody wanted to win in the same way, there were different ways of preparing to win. "Some guys take a nap, some go to the bathroom, some throw up, some, like me, tell jokes. We're not all the same."


cont'd...

[Angry Pope]

cont'd....

Madden thought about it and realized the player was right. From that point on, he accommodated all the various styles of preparation. "I learned from my mistakes, from decisions that went wrong," Madden said. "But looking back, I think I learned more from people."

When I read this, I had no doubt that it was true, but I was also convinced that the ease with which he made that adjustment, the facile nature of the shift, had deeper roots. I began to wonder about his fear of flying.

Duane Benson, when I roomed with him during the '77 preseason, told me that Madden was a white-knuckle flyer, but I didn't witness the phenomenon for myself until '78, when I arrived at the airport late for a road game after Stingley was hurt. There, I found our coach with a towel draped around his neck, sweating profusely, as he paced the floor outside the tunnel that led down to the plane. Startled by Madden's panic-stricken look, I paused to see if there was anything I could do to help.

"I can't get on 'til the last second," Madden murmured. Embarrassed, he wheeled away.

Before heading down the ramp, I stood there for a moment, taking it in. Madden's fear was deeper and darker than anything I'd imagined. Seeing it made me think about my own fear.

When I was 10, my family lived in West Covina, Calif., a bedroom community nestled against the Covina Hills 30 miles east of Los Angeles. This was 1958. I attended Vine Street School and played baseball for the 7-Up team in the West Covina Little League. My best friend on the team, Larry Young, lived in a big house up in the hills; while spending time with him there, we would sometimes toss rocks into the pool of the house behind his, which belonged to a Southern California football coach named John McKay.

My father's two brothers lived in Ontario and Claremont respectively, two towns adjacent to each other 17 miles further east. On weekends, we would drive to Ontario for family get-togethers. On these trips, we would follow I-10 over Kellogg Hill, passing the new Forest Lawn cemetery, with its gaudy imitation Italian statues, and the Cal Poly campus, which was set against the west side of the hill with its name spelled out in white rocks on the slope of an embankment. During the time we lived in West Covina, these landmarks became an integral part of my childhood life, as I roamed the hills, played Little League baseball and caddied at a local golf course.

Late in 1958, the Air Force moved my family to upstate New York, and that's where we were living when news came that a charter plane carrying the Cal Poly football team had crashed while taking off from the Toledo airport after the team had lost a football game 50-6 to Bowling Green. At the time, my 12-year-old brain assumed the plane was carrying the team from the Pomona Cal Poly campus near our home in West Covina. My father's intense reaction to the accident only served to reinforce this impression, because I could think of no other reason why he would be so consumed by it.

And he was consumed by it. Twenty-two of the 48 people on board had been killed. Yet 26 had survived. How? Why had some perished and not others?

The C46 had exploded and flipped in dense fog at an altitude of 100 feet. Engine problems were suspected. A few minutes before takeoff, quarterback Ted Tollner had switched seats with receiver Curtis Hill, who had asked to sit near the front of the plane instead of over the left wing. Everybody from Tollner's spot back lived while everyone in front of Tollner died, including Hill. Why? Why Hill and not Tollner or the others?

In photographs of the wreckage, the back half of the plane appeared undamaged. That's where the survivors were sitting and, for my father, that became key. When I began flying in high school for recruiting trips, he'd pound it into me. Sit in back of the plane. That's the safest part. Always sit in back of the plane.

After Stingley got hurt, I found myself drawn to this same kind of whirling rumination. I was on the field when the play happened. Recovering from a John Hannah bang-block, I launched myself at quarterback Steve Grogan, hitting him just as he threw. My pressure might have caused the errant pass that put Stingley prone and made him vulnerable to the hit. A sack would have prevented his injury.

The vortex of guilt that descended was unrelenting. Had I been lined up over tackle Leon Gray instead of Hawg Hannah, I might have gotten to Grogan. But we were playing our new 3-4 defense. I'd slid inside so a linebacker could blitz. If only we hadn't changed.

This past August, the Cal Poly football team returned to Toledo to play a game for the first time since the tragedy 41 years before. While reading an article about the visit, I realized I'd made a mistake. When I was 12, I'd assumed the Cal Poly flight was from the Pomona campus near my home. But it wasn't. The flight was carrying the team from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, John Madden's alma mater.

A 1959 graduate, Madden had returned to campus in 1960 to do graduate work, after wrecking his knee in Eagles training camp. I vaguely knew this, but what I didn't know, and what wasn't mentioned in the Toledo article, was that Madden was supposed to be on that flight. I found this out when I dug up a column written by Washington Post reporter Ken Denlinger on the occasion of Madden's retirement. "As assured as Madden seemed publicly," Denlinger wrote, "there were signs of inner turmoil. Because a quirk of fate kept him off the plane that crashed and killed several Cal Poly San Luis Obispo players in 1960, Madden has avoided flying whenever possible."

That was the extent of the reporting. Wanting to know more, I phoned Denlinger and asked if he remembered what had happened. He didn't, but he referred me to another reporter who did; Betty Cuniberti, who had covered the Raiders for the San Francisco Chronicle during the '76 Super Bowl season and who had subsequently worked with Denlinger at the Post, told me that her memory was sketchy, but she seemed to recall that Madden was involved with the football team when he returned to school. She said that he might have been sent on some other assignment -- he was kept at home to coach the junior-varsity team -- that had kept him out of harm's way.

That was all I needed to hear. As we know now, proximity to such a disaster can create what psychologists call an ensouled perspective. Madden's patience, caring and understanding, his tolerance and absolute refusal to judge, were no mere pretense, as cynics held, but rather a response to devastating loss. Madden's intimate knowledge of his own frailty enabled him to respond to frailty in others.

This was what made him the perfect coach for Al Davis and his quirky Raiders. This was what enabled him to respond to Darryl Stingley in the way he did. This is what has fueled his unexpected and spectacularly successful broadcasting career.

On a certain level, Madden communicates the simple thrill of being in one's body. The earthy entanglements of line play. The grunting and banging. The rollicking in the muck and crap. Though football is a violent game, Madden grasps its essence. He reveres it. But then he always did -- the memory of, and longing for, the joy of playing.

Former NFL defensive end Pat Toomay played in the league for 10 years (1970-79) with the Cowboys, Bills, Bucs and Raiders. He is the author of two books, The Crunch and the novel On Any Given Sunday.

[Angry Pope]

From his other articles...

.....Since the game was a home game, on Saturday night, as per routine, we checked into the Oakland Airport Hilton for a night of undisturbed rest. After losing Duane, I was curious to see who my new roommate would be, and it wasn't long before I found out: at quarter to 11, a few minutes before bedcheck, a key sounded in the lock, the door swung open and in ambled John Matuszak. Moving in a cloud of cologne, wearing one of those billowy, silk disco shirts tucked into a pair of double-knit, bell-bottomed slacks, Tooz flopped down on a bed and began paging through a Hustler Magazine, oohhing and aahhing at each new picture. As it turned out, Tooz was a connoisseur of the female pudenda, so naturally he felt compelled to detail the intricacies of his sexual technique, particularly as experienced by certain "delectable" East Bay women. After doing that, he talked about all the "scenes" he'd had the good fortune to stumble into, the "good s---" that was seemingly everywhere available; he spoke glowingly of his favorite San Francisco night spots. "You should come out with me one night," Tooz said at length. "One night you should do it. Come 'Cruisin' with the Tooz.' "


I laughed, thanked him for the invite. "Appreciate it, Tooz," I said. What I didn't tell him was that I'd already decided I wanted nothing to do with Tooz and his nightlife. The endless hunt for football-player starved women, the booze, the dark, the glare, the barking, wailing and screaming that I imagined roused by Tooz and his wanderings was something I felt I'd lost the capacity to survive, let alone seek out. I already knew it would never happen.


After paging through the rest of the magazine, Tooz sighed, rolled over, switched off his lamp. For a long time he lay in the darkness, breathing deeply, exhaling through his nostrils. Then he sort of snorted, as if something important had suddenly drifted into view.


"I hate the Chargers, man," he muttered. "Not as much as the Chiefs. But I hate 'em. And we're gonna kick their ass."


"I think you're right, Tooz," I said.


"You're gonna eat Billy Shields' lunch," Tooz added.


Billy Shields was San Diego's left offensive tackle. He was tall, agile, out of Georgia Tech. Not overwhelmingly strong, but skilled at holding. Vulnerable at the corner if you could get a jump at the snap.


"That f-----. What an a------," Tooz mumbled. And with that, he started to snore.


The game itself was a 24-0 blowout. Riding the tide of a delirious reception by the Raider fans, we broke it open early when rookie Lester "The Molester" Hayes blocked a punt and another rookie, Randy "Nose" McLanahan, took it down to the 10. Snake rifled a quick one to Cliff Branch and the rout was on......

[Angry Pope]

More.......

Al Davis, then as now, possessed a reverence bordering on awe for the sheer physicality of many of his players, particularly his great ones. There was something almost childlike in his veneration. Seeing a player perform a trick with a football, Al would try the trick himself. Inevitably, he would fail, looking foolish in the process, much to everyone's glee. Discomfort with his own body led to long sessions in the weight room, which prompted more teasing, since Al tended to focus on his upper body at the expense of his legs. This "arms first" approach gave Al the proverbial toothpicks-for-legs bodybuilders' syndrome. "Ol' Baggy Pants" was the inevitable nickname. But Al's willingness to reveal his vulnerability to his players endeared him to them. It created a bond between players and owner that existed nowhere else in football.

[Angry Pope]

Last one....

....The issue was the League Uniform Code. Sometime in the mid-'70s, the league decided "to create consistency in the appearance of its product" (product being the players). The policy targeted idiosyncratic alterations players made to uniforms, such as strapping white adhesive across the tops of stockings, or allowing shirts to come untucked during games. After defining rules, the league dispatched inspectors. Infractions were noted. Fines were levied. The fines escalated with continued noncompliance.

Of course, of all the teams in the NFL, the Raiders were among the worst adulterators. Of all the Raiders, the most profligate offender was Fred Biletnikoff. How Fred felt in his uniform was of vital importance to him, so getting dressed for a game acquired the intensity and feeling of a sacred ritual. First, Fred would hold his game pants up to the light. Carefully inspecting them, he'd snip off every little extraneous hanging thread. His pants had to come to just over his knees, so he'd cut them in back for more freedom. He wore his black understockings just over his calves, so the flesh was bare to the knee.

Then he'd go through the ceremony of selecting and spatting his game shoes. Spatting was when you wrapped white tape around your shoes; the resulting look was like those 1920s dandies who wore spats. Once that was done, Freddy would tape a crucifix under his flimsy shoulder pads. Then he'd tape his wrists and spray the tape with Stickum. Finally, he'd yank on his helmet and begin the endless process of adjusting his chin strap.

During all of this, Snake and Pete "Rooster" Banaszak would harass him unmercifully. They'd hide his shoes or lace them wrong. Or after he was dressed, Pete, winking at Snake, would say, "Jeez, what happened? Your uniform looks like crap today!" At which point, Freddy would take everything off and start all over again. "Be a little more careful," Snake would tell him.

So it went on this day. The ritual was followed to a T. Biletnikoff performed. Another Raiders victory went down in the books.

After games, three buses left at staggered times for the airport. The first bus departed 45 minutes after the game, the second bus 15 minutes later, the third bus 15 minutes after that. Generally, most everybody got on one of the first two busses, but I found that the older I got, the longer I liked to linger, so I usually found myself on the third bus, along with a few other stragglers.

On this day, Snake was the only other player on the bus when I climbed aboard. He'd taken a seat on the left side all the way back. Settling down behind him, I accepted a paper cup half full of whiskey, a fifth of which Snake had stashed in his briefcase. We toasted, drank and, after a minute, Freddy came back. Still sweaty and wired from the game, Freddy plopped down across from Snake, fired up a cigarette as he threw down the whiskey Snake had passed him. "Let's go, bussy!" Fred yelled at the driver. "Who's left anyway?" The driver held up his hand. "One more," he said. "Come on, let's go!" Freddy barked. But the driver insisted on waiting. Then we saw why. The one person left was Al Davis.

As Al got on the bus, he grabbed the pole behind the driver and was about to swivel into his seat when he caught sight of us in back. "Hey!" Al shouted at Freddy, pointing a rolled up game program at him. "You cost me another $2,500 today with the way you butcher your uniform every week!"

Fred recoiled, as if his trust had been violated and he had been called a traitor. His response was immediate and assaultive, for he was defending hallowed ground.

"F--- you, you no-legged baggy-pantsed mother------," Freddy snarled. "You told me 'Whatever it takes!' "

Hearing this, I cringed, slid down in my seat until I'd disappeared from view. In my experience, this was unprecedented. Violence, I was sure, was imminent. But then I could hear Al start to laugh. Slowly, I raised my head. Sure enough, Al was laughing. Head thrown back, he was laughing and laughing.

"I guess I told him, huh, Tombstone?" Fred said to me. Now chuckling himself, Fred tossed off more whiskey.

"Zhivago, you're some piece of work, man," Snake remarked.

[Angry Pope]

Stabler....

....He never lost his cool. When a game-opening drive stalled in the '77 Super Bowl and the Raiders had to settle for a field goal, Stabler told his frantic coach, John Madden, "Relax, John. There are plenty more points where that came from.'' He was right. The Raiders beat Minnesota 32-14.

[Angry Pope]

Another one for Stabler...

....In a 1977 playoff game in Baltimore which was in the second overtime, the Raiders were driving when the Colts called a timeout. When Stabler came off the field, he was looking into the stands.

"You've got to concentrate, Snake,'' Madden said.

"You know, John,'' Stabler said. "I was just thinking -- those people are seeing a helluva game today.''

When the timeout ended, Stabler went back on the field and threw the winning touchdown pass to tight end Dave Casper.

[Angry Pope]

Against the Jets...

....."What I remember about that game was Namath was sacked by Art Thoms and practically had to be carried off the field," said Raiders executive assistant Al LoCasale, who has been with the organization since 1969. "It looked like he was through for the night.

"But the next time the Jets got the ball, he came limping back out onto the field and fifty thousand fans in Oakland gave him a standing ovation."

Despite that feel-good moment, there was plenty of bad blood in the rivalry.

The Raiders' Ike Lassiter once broke Namath's jaw with a hit, even though fellow defensive end Ben Davidson got the blame. Namath refused to give either credit.

"I ate a tough piece of steak in the pregame meal," Joe Willie told reporters through a swollen cheek after the game.

Maynard caught seven passes for 131 yards in that Monday night game to become pro football's all-time leader receiver at the time. Then, in the fourth quarter, Raiders linebacker Phil Villapiano delivered a shot that broke Maynard's nose.

Several of the Jets called it a cheap shot, but Villapiano swears it was an accident.

"When I was a rookie, we were playing Kansas City in the [next-to-last] game of the season," he says. "I didn't check Otis Taylor at the line on a big play near the end of the game and he caught a pass to set up a field goal that beat us and knocked us out of the playoffs. I made up my mind that nobody would do that to me again.

"On the play against Maynard, I went out to check him and he tried to juke me. He had that single-bar facemask. I was wearing gloves with pads inside and hit him right in the face, but I was just trying to jam him.

"[Jets' coach] Weeb Ewbank came running out there screaming and yelling. Atkinson told him to get off the field. That's just the way it was. It was the Jets and the Raiders."

Heidi notwithstanding, this rivalry was for adults only.

[Angry Pope]

Tooz.........


At his funeral, Al Davis recalled the time he reprimanded Matuszak for showing up at his favorite tavern after practice in his Raiders uniform; the next day he changed into a tuxedo before heading out. Ex-Chiefs teammates still talk about the time he snuck his girlfriend into the locker room for a romp in the whirlpool. The night after we spotted Matuszak in the French Quarter, Raiders coach Tom Flores caught him breaking curfew and fined him $1,000. The coach of the opposing Eagles, Dick Vermeil, was outraged. "If he was an Eagle," said the uptight Vermeil, "he'd be on a flight back to Philadelphia right now!" But because he was a Raider, the Eagles lost, 27-10.

[CrossBones]

You're on a roll AP...great stuff. I'm ready for some football!

[Angry Pope]

Another one....

Resurrected Raider old pros Rod Woodson, Jerry Rice, and Bill Romanowski are enjoying big seasons, and head coach Bill Callahan is becoming a new icon among Raider Nation fans that enjoy his unpredictability, which harkens back to the days of the big old tough Raider players who unnerved fans and players alike with their strange moods and antics. The Raiders, (4-0), are the NFL's only unbeaten team.

Anyone remember John Matuszak? Ted Hendricks? The shiny, bald, steaming head of Otis Sistrunk, listed as being from the "University of Mars"? Lyle Alzado and Matt Millen, former Raiders who once rode Harley-Davidsons into a biker bar and dismounted, grabbed some campaign buttons, stuck them pin-first into their bare chests and bloodily challenged the entire biker bar to a fight. There were NO takers.

[Angry Pope]

I know that you know a lot of Raider stories like the ones already posted. Man, I would do anything to get a reincarnation of those bad ass teams. I have complete confidence in Art.

[Angry Pope]

Ted Hendricks....

Hendricks once arranged to have the wedding of a favorite barmaid officiated by Raiders defensive tackle Art Thoms.

``It was a beautiful thing and Teddy was the best man,'' Villapiano said. ``Of course Art wasn't ordained, so little do those people know that they're not married -- courtesy of Ted Hendricks.''


He earned his preferred nickname -- which teammates shortened to Kick-'Em -- when he accidentally booted fullback Marv Hubbard in the noggin during practice, knocking him out cold. There were no hard feelings. Later, Madden was about to fine Hendricks for missing a bed check before learning the reason: the linebacker had been on the town consoling Hubbard, who had just been cut.

[Angry Pope]

Here is an incident with Villapiano and the Super Bowl....

......On first down Chuck Foreman got a yard to our 2, but on second down Phil Villapiano hit Brent McClanahan, who fumbled. Willie Hall recovered on the 1 for us. That good feeling came over me again. Our defense hurried off the field, jumping and yelling, slapping hands and hugging each other, proving my theory that success breeds togetherness, not that togetherness breeds success.


But in the jubilation of the fumble recovery, Jack Tatum hurried over to me and nodded toward Villapiano. "You better check out Phil," he said. "What's the matter with him?" I asked.


"I think he's goofy," Jack told me.


"He's always a little goofy," I said.


"No, he's more goofy than usual," Jack said. "When we were in the huddle down there near the goal-line, he was saying, 'Now we've got 'em where we want 'em.' "


"He said that?"


"He said that."


I walked over to where Phil was sitting on the bench. "You all right?" I asked.


"Yeah, I'm fine," he said.


"The guys told me that you were saying, 'Now we got 'em where we want 'em.' "


"We did have 'em where we want 'em."


"We did? On our 3 ... on our 2?"


"Yeah. Down there, they couldn't throw any deep passes, they weren't going to run any sweeps or any reverses, they were just going to run up the middle. I got in there, the ball popped loose, and we got it. We had 'em right where we wanted 'em."


"Yeah, you're right," I said. "Yeah, we did have 'em right where we wanted 'em."

[Angry Pope]

Ben Davidson's favorite play...

... I think it was actually against the Chiefs, too and that was in Oakland. It was on the North end zone. The Chiefs were trying to score on us and we had to hold them and I was down on the goal line, you get down low and they’re trying to push you back and you’re trying to push them back and I fired out through the line expecting to hit someone and no one blocked me. For some reason, it must have been a mistake on the Chiefs’ offensive lineman and I came barreling through, maybe about three feet high with my head down and I ran right into the Chiefs’ ball carrier whose name is Mack Lee Hill and hit him right in the stomach with my head and it was evidently really noisy because people said that they could hear it up in the stands. Everyone thought “what a play, what a great tackle”. But the fact was I had my head down and I didn’t even know he was coming and I almost hurt myself. I wasn’t ready to hit someone. So it was kind of funny, the guys were all patting me and saying “hey great job” and it was an unexpected surprise tackle.

[Angry Pope]

Big Ben's story on how long he had his moustache...

...Back when I got to the Raiders, through no fault of that nice Mr. Davis, football just didn’t pay that much back in those days so players had off- season jobs. My first year with the Raiders which was 1964, I got an off-season job working for Stolte Construction who is probably still around. It was a water pipeline job in hills east of Mission San Jose. I didn’t shave the whole off-season so I had a pretty big beard going by the time training camp came around. You have to know back then, back in the middle 60’s, if you had a beard, you pretty much a communist or some sort of agitator.

That was the days of free speech movement at University of California and Mario Savio. For an athlete to have any sort of facial hair at all was very weird. Al Davis said “Ben, you’re going to shave that beard, aren’t you?”. And I said “Ya, I’ll shave”. So I didn’t shave for a few days, so Al asked me again, “Ben, you’re going to shave that, aren’t you?” and I said “Ya”. He didn’t ever tell me to shave it, but he asked me if I was going to shave. I didn’t have any big master plan or anything, so one day I went into the training room in training camp. It may have been ten days or two weeks after training camp started. They have clippers in the training room so players shave their ankles so when they tape their ankles, they don’t pull the hair out of their ankles.

I took the clippers and shaved off the beard, but I left the mustache and I guess that people were so relieved that I didn’t have a beard that it was just down to a mustache so they didn’t bother me about the mustache. That was in 1965 and I haven’t shaved since. Actually, I did an acting job on a show called The Rebels that was about the Revolutionary War. I had an acting job on that show where I had to burst into a room. Just before we were suppose to start shooting, I was all dressed up in my Revolutionary War outfit, somebody came running up and said “Ben, Ben, we just found out that they didn’t have mustaches around the Revolutionary War days. Will you shave?” and I said, “No”. They said, “Oh, okay.” And that’s the closest that I ever came to shaving it off and I guess I probably would have shaved for an acting job if they would have insisted, but no one ever insisted.

[Angry Pope]

Sistrunk on the University Of Mars...

Now that’s not a college. That’s a peg that Alex Karras put on my back around 1973 and 1974 during a Monday night game when he saw me playing. The camera was on my head and the camera was on the moon then he just came up with the saying the University of Mars. The name is still sticking with me today.

[Rupert]

I must spread more reputation around before giving more love to Benedict. Dude has kept the slow months bearable with all this Raider lore and legend. I'm so pumped to have Art here ready to transform this team back into the intimidators of old. It's not going to happen, I realize, but it's fun to dream.

[Angry Pope]

Bob Brown's enormous impact
Oakland's outspoken former lineman Hall of Fame-bound

- Ira Miller
Wednesday, August 4, 2004


Bob Brown is hard to miss, but in the NFL today, he might hardly get noticed.

It was different when Brown, an offensive tackle, played in the 1960s and '70s. Back then, NFL players were supposed to play football only. They generally kept their mouths shut. They certainly did not have dance routines or other shticks, and they didn't keep popping up on ESPN or the Internet.

In that era, it didn't take much for players to stand out and get a label, and Brown got one. He was different. He was smart, maybe too smart. Some people thought he was a clubhouse lawyer. He was a 300-pounder when that size was unusual. He was one of the best offensive linemen in NFL history, but he was traded twice in his prime. He ended his career in Oakland, where more than 30 years later, he still lives in the same building, but he was that rare Raiders player who wouldn't kiss Al Davis' ring.

We'll never know if that personality was responsible for the long wait that ensued, but it finally will end Sunday when Brown is inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame at Canton, Ohio, along with John Elway, Barry Sanders and Carl Eller.

"If I needed a song that would kind of background me as I was making my (induction) speech," Brown said the other day, "I would play, 'My Way.' ''

Which is exactly how he did it.

And in his day, that made him different.

"Athletes at that point weren't supposed to be outspoken, and I was always a pretty outspoken guy," Brown said.

Yet, measured against today's players, Brown said, "I'd be Little Miss Muffet, sitting somewhere in the corner."

Said John Madden, Brown's coach with the Raiders: "He'd be like a choir boy."

Stories get embellished through the years, but the stories about Brown really happened.

Such as his first day with the Raiders in training camp at Santa Rosa in 1971, when he emerged from the locker room and, with his new teammates trying to figure out what to make of this huge man, stalked the length of the field like a big bear, got down in his stance and, with one mighty thwack of his forearm, knocked down the wooden goalposts. Sheered them off right at field level.

"Then he walked back in the locker room, and that was it (for the day)," Madden said.

Quite an intimidating debut.

"His biceps and forearm were bigger than your leg," said Willie Brown, a Hall of Fame cornerback teammate who is now on the Raiders' coaching staff.

Defensive end Deacon Jones, another Hall of Famer, was known for his vicious head slaps against offensive tackles before the head slap was legislated out of the game. Jones could whack an opponent so that he'd still hear ringing in his ears on Monday.

Brown had a plan to prevent that.

Before a game between the Eagles, his team at the time, and Jones' Rams, Brown took the face mask off his helmet and re-attached it, reversing the screws and sharpening the ends so that there was a sharp point on the outside.

Jones used the head slap and let out a howl. His hand met the sharpened screw on top of Brown's helmet. Tore a hole clear through his left hand.

"He ran like a girl to the refs," Brown said. "Ripped his hand to shreds. I loved it."

No dummy, Brown had squirreled away a backup helmet on the sideline to show the officials when they checked. But that was the last time Jones head- slapped him so viciously, and later they actually became pals as teammates with the Rams. Today, Jones says that Brown was the "fiercest" tackle he faced.

Brown played his first five years with the Eagles, then played two years with the Rams before finishing with three seasons in Oakland. He asked to be traded the first time to protest the firing of coach Joe Kuharich and the second time he was dealt over contract issues. But there was not a hint of a problem between Brown and Madden.

"I guess he wasn't the easiest guy to get along with, for coaches, although I don't know what he did because I never saw it," Madden said.

It wasn't that way with Brown and Boss Raider, and today, Brown says that any issues he had with Davis were largely his own fault.

"I probably could have done more and said less to have effected a better relationship between Al and myself," Brown said. "In that instance, I shot my mouth off about a couple of things that I was out of line about, and I shouldn't have."

We know the game today is different. Money rules. Team is out, individuality is in. That doesn't mean it's good, but that's the way it is in many places. And that's not Brown's kind of thing. He also says he never smoked or took a drink or an illicit drug. Aside from a pronounced limp and assorted other ailments, he still looks fit enough to play at 62.

Madden credits Brown's influence on Gene Upshaw and Art Shell with making the Raiders' offensive line one of the most aggressive in the league, a style that was passed through generations of the team's players, most recently to retired guard Steve Wisniewski, once labeled the NFL's dirtiest player.

"I was so aggressive and attack-oriented, I was really trying to physically hurt (my opponents)," Brown said. "I was never cute about how I did what I did."

He did it well enough to earn six Pro Bowl selections in a 10-year career cut short by a knee problem. Today, Brown has three titanium plates in his left leg and a pacemaker. But he says he would not have changed a thing about his career.

"The tank was dry," he said. "I never felt like I could have done more. I just did it in a way that I felt like, if I was paying my money to watch somebody do this, I'd pay to watch (me)."

[RaiderIVlife]

Jones used the head slap and let out a howl. His hand met the sharpened screw on top of Brown's helmet. Tore a hole clear through his left hand.

"He ran like a girl to the refs," Brown said. "Ripped his hand to shreds. I loved it."

No dummy, Brown had squirreled away a backup helmet on the sideline to show the officials when they checked. But that was the last time Jones head- slapped him so viciously, and later they actually became pals as teammates with the Rams. Today, Jones says that Brown was the "fiercest" tackle he faced.

Bwahahahahahahahhaha

Can we trade Gallery for him?

[Angry Pope]

Skip Thomas...

Skip once had a stuntman’s motorcycle wipeout en route to Raider practice, sewed himself up in the parking lot and still managed to knock Fred Biletnikoff into the nosebleeds. “Skip had different ideas about how to play the game,” said Raider author/assassin Jack Tatum.

[Angry Pope]

Bob Golic on playing for Art...

Oh man. Well, first off it was neat because we knew he was a player. I think those of us who had played a number of years had had the experience of playing with a coach that maybe didn’t have very much pro playing experience. Maybe coached in the pros and played in college, and things like that. But when you had a guy who actually knew the game and knew the pro mentality from a player standpoint, it was pretty neat. You felt like you could relate to him. I’ll never forget one time in training camp, we were having a bad morning practice, which usually means if you have a bad morning practice, eventually the coach calls you up, yells at you and says if you don’t get this right, we’ll stay out here all day, I don’t care if it takes five hours. And I remember him blowing the horn, everybody ran up there and I’m waiting for this and Art looked at us and said, “You know, we’ve been here a week or 10 days now, you know what you guys, your legs are tired, mentally you’re kind of worn out. Lets break practice, you guys go hit the weights a little bit, take the afternoon off.” We all just looked at each other like oh-my-God. He understood. I think he understood the physical and mental aspect and what the players needed and I thought that was pretty cool. Plus he was just scary, because even though I’m a big guy, he was.. He had this deep voice and he didn’t even have to say anything. I remember if we were in a team meeting and a player walked in late, oh my God. A lot of times he wouldn’t even say anything. He would stop whatever he was saying and it would just go dead silent, I mean you couldn’t even hear a pin drop. He would just stare at whoever the player it was walking in. And the thing is we’re all sitting there, we’re already in the meeting so we’re not in trouble, but he had a way of making everybody feel like they were in trouble.

[Angry Pope]

Golic gets a sack...

Well, you know being one of those old style nose tackles where you just line up in the middle and get a lot of double teams, these days everybody kind of lines up and jumps through gaps, and they’re all pass rushers. Back when I was playing nose tackles were called two-gap nose tackles. They had to get in a gap and let people double-team them, so sacks weren’t always the easiest things to get. So, anytime I got a sack it was a memorable moment. Plus I remember one time I was getting bumped around trying to pass rush; it was always like a pinball machine for me, getting knocked around. I remember Steve DeBerg was the quarterback we were playing against and as I was getting bumped around I got hit by a couple of guys. I was falling, and as I fell DeBerg tried to run with the ball and I just kind of swung my arm to the side and my hand caught him right on the ankle and just tripped him enough to have him fall down, and I got credit for the sack. And I remember him standing up and shaking his head and he looked over and saw that it was me that sacked him and he just goes “oh gees” I mean he just got mad because he knew I wasn’t one of those guys that got many sacks.

[Angry Pope]

From Golic on a memorable game...

We had a lot of good ones. I do remember one bad one. It was a game in the coliseum in Los Angeles vs. Kansas City, it was towards the end of the game and I think we were still winning. I remember we broke the huddle, and as we were breaking the huddle, Howie said, “Whatever you guys do, just remember stay on sides. Don’t let them pull you off sides.” Well, I think they were starting on the 10 or 20-yard line. By the end of the drive when they went and they scored Howie and I had jumped off side a total of eight times, five for him and three for me. So at the time it was pretty brutal. Looking back now, if somebody brings it up, we still look at each other like I can’t believe we blew that so bad.

[Rupert]

Golic was a man. He left it on the field, heart and soul. Al even threw him a bone and let him start and play most of his last game in the NFL. Bob stayed on the field afterward for a long time.

[Angry Pope]

Here is an older article written by Jon Ritchie...

Point of odor - I-Formation

Nov 25, 2002

Jon Ritchie

It was 1988 when I first noticed I needed deodorant. My uniform lay crumpled in a grass-stained heap on the cracked cement of the ninth-grade locker room floor. My teammates didn't want me to put it on for practice. The outfit's red and white were brown and greenish brown, and the stench pierced our nostrils. Back then, a football uniform withstood weeks of abuse between washings by Mom.

Times have changed, but I cling to my roots. I take pride ha tire horrible smells of football. I've been wearing the same undershirt every game for five years. Once a pristine white, it's now an indescribable gray-orange, and the fibers are so fragile that I'm forced to carefully ease it on. I fear it may disintegrate eventually. When it's flesh out of my laundry bag, the shirt is scentless, like a newborn fawn. Unfortunately, an olfactory transformation occurs within minutes. When I begin to sweat, my lucky undershirt protests with the musk of a rutting, nasty, ancient boar--with a puzzling Clorox undertone.

My shoulder and elbow pads bear a strikingly similar bouquet, having been marinated endlessly in football flank.

Many of my teammates break out new footwear every Sunday. I've always opted to stick with the familiar. I sport the same shoes for practices and games all season. They're nice and broken in and never give me blisters; but minor putrid drawbacks do exist. The days after a rainy-game hasting can be particularly offensive for those at nearby lockers. It's as if my trusty Nikes have a mind of their own, and they're protesting for a little breather by making breathing unpleasant. It's too bad, but yon just can't wash cleats.

Nowadays, our pads, jerseys, pants, socks, T-shirts and unmentionables are scrubbed and cleaned with care on a daily basis by a crack equipment staff. The team seamstress stitches holes. We clothe ourselves for competition in plush locker rooms. Much is made of the glory, excitement and luxury of today's NFL--and with good cause. However, most people fail to realize that despite every painstaking precaution, I still stink on game day.

[Angry Pope]

Here is another older article written by Jon Ritchie...

Hollandaised and confused - I-Formation

Jon Ritchie

My childhood was marked by special Saturday morning trips to the Mechanicsburg (Pa.) Denny's with my father. I ritualistically caved to 8-year-old cravings and ordered French toast with syrupy strawberries and whipped cream. To my horror, Dad would request a nightmarish breakfast creation--eggs Benedict, which I swore I'd never touch despite insistent reminders such as, "Jonny, this was your Pop-Pop's favorite breakfast."

But somewhere through years of banging my head on people, I acquired an intense desire for the dish I once misunderstood. I suppose I inherited the mouth of my grandpa and his son, and the taste buds therein. I need eggs Benedict. It's my crutch, my strange day-before-the-game addiction.

Other players may obsess over spot ring a lucky dirt- and Flex-All-stained T-shirt beneath their pads--or stammer along and bob their heads compulsively to a familiar CD Sunday after Sunday. I've seen anxious athletes pound their foreheads against the cold steal of a locker as they rehearse for the brutal gridiron ballet ahead. I wish my ritual were so simple. I yearn for my eggs.

Before home games, we meet as a team, watch film and walk through some plays on Saturday morning. Then I high-tail it to my task, quirky, only-in-Berkeley breakfast joint. Customers file through the cramped seating area with their French toast-ordering kids, lured by a wafting, rich scent. This secret dive is my pregame Eden. It inspires me to dig deep the following day, reminds me that I'm honoring the dietary tradition of my father and his father. I will strain toward victory, sustained by history--not only the storied history of the Raiders but the history of my family's love for vessel-dogging morsels.

The hotels we stay in on the road never have featured eggs Benedict, so I'm forced to jerry-rig a concoction of scrambled eggs covering ham slices on top of a muffin. I pour gravy over this, close my eyes and pretend.

But there's nothing like a vibrant yellow hollandaise sauce. A tinge of creamy tang with a savory, buttered finish. The exquisite flavor lingers into Saturday afternoon and beyond as I taste the Canadian bacon in the salt of my sweat on Sunday.

[Angry Pope]

I tried to break this article down but there were pieces of the story that worked together...my apologies for it being a bit longer than the rest....

This Was the Time for One Good Man

Given all the time in the world to throw, Jim Plunkett formidably came to the aid of his team, passing for three touchdowns as the Oakland Raiders routed the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XV


By Paul Zimmerman

Issue date: February 2, 1981


Their fans love them but hate their owner. Their emblem is a guy with a patch over one eye and two swords sticking out of his head. During the week before the Oakland Raiders beat the Philadelphia Eagles 27-10 Sunday to win Super Bowl XV, their coach collected $15,000 in fines. "Actually, that's a conservative figure," said their captain, Gene Upshaw, the left guard. "We're not a bunch of choirboys and Boy Scouts. They say we're the Halfway House of the NFL. Well, we live up to that image." Here Upshaw paused in his postgame oration for dramatic emphasis, and a smile split his face. "Every chance we get."

It was late. The last bus had left for the Raiders' team party. The locker room was almost empty. Only a few stragglers remained -- Al Davis and his brother, Jerry, from New York, Lester Hayes scrubbing the last remnants of stickum from various parts of his anatomy, Jim Plunkett recounting for the umpteenth time the tale of his resurrection. And Upshaw, still wearing most of his uniform, savoring the moment, prolonging it. El Capitan. Fourteen years an Oakland Raider -- hey, he started in Super Bowl II against the Packers and Henry Jordan -- 202 straight games, 24 in postseason.

He has seen almost all the whackos and misfits and hit-men who've worn the silver and black: Dan Birdwell, who used to hurt people just by bumping into them in the locker room; Big Ben Davidson; George Buehler and his electronic toys; 7-foot Richard Sligh, who carried a gun on his hip. And when someone reminded Upshaw of Eagle Coach Dick Vermeil's rejoinder that John Matuszak, a curfew-breaker during Super Bowl week, would've been on his way home before the game were he an Eagle, Upshaw threw back his head and laughed. "If Tom Flores sent home every guy on this football team who screwed up," he said, "he'd be the only guy on the sideline."

The sidelines Sunday, that's another story. A league official who was near the Oakland bench reported that when they weren't on the field, the players were busy eating peanuts. "The place was littered with shells," he said. Upshaw said the pregame locker room was typical Oakland -- "one or two card games, radios going, a few guys rolling dice, nothing special."

When Cliff Branch caught his touchdown passes, of two and 29 yards, from Plunkett, when Kenny King grabbed another -- an 80-yard play, a Super Bowl record -- when Chris Bahr booted his two field goals, the bench didn't erupt. There weren't many high fives, fists in the air, we're No. 1, any of that stuff. Cool it, guys, where's the party tonight?

When Pete Rozelle presented the trophy to Davis in the dressing room and Davis mumbled, "Thanks very much, uh, thanks very much, Commissioner," you could barely see this odd couple for the innumerable cameras that sprung up like weeds. It looked like a Japanese bus tour as the Raiders hoisted their cameras in the air to capture the moment forever.

Oh, they're different all right. When Vermeil sits down with his projector and cans of film in the still hours of the night, there will come a time when he'll rub his tired eyes and ask himself, "How did they do it? We covered all the angles. We worked on everything -- man, did we work. Two practices, in pads yet, on Tuesday, picture day. Team dinners, evening meetings. We attacked that soft zone they used, threw underneath it and moved the ball on them. We used the same pass-rush scheme that got us eight sacks when we beat them 10-7 in Philly in November. How did it happen? We're a team of character, of dedication, and we lost big in our biggest game ever. To a bunch of loose hangers like that. How?"

It starts with the offensive line, the heart and soul of the Raiders. Let's go back to August, when we were all picking the Raiders to go 7-9 or 6-10 and finish last in the AFC West, all us geniuses. What did we see then? An in-and-out quarterback named Dan Pastorini replacing The Snake, Kenny Stabler, and a backup quarterback named Plunkett, who'd worn a hole in the bench. A defense that finished 21st in the league in 1979 and had hardly changed. An aging and crippled offensive line. Yep, that's the place to start rebuilding all right.

We didn't look at that line carefully enough. It doesn't really fit the Oakland image. No refugees there. Every one of the front five was a high draft choice: two No. 1s, a No. 3 and two No. 4s. Proud people, solid citizens, three of them with Pro Bowl credentials. They smile and shake their heads when the wilder guys do a number, but they're basically serious people -- Guards Mickey Marvin and Upshaw, Tackles Art Shell and Henry Lawrence, Center Dave Dalby -- and in November the Eagles had embarrassed them and dusted their quarterback eight times.

"Watch this game carefully," Lawrence had said on Monday, when the Raiders arrived in New Orleans. "Last time they did things to us that they won't do this time. They stopped our running, but they won't do it Sunday. They won't get to Plunkett. As for me personally, I was embarrassed by Claude Humphrey [3 1/2 sacks]. This time I'm going to try to become the first offensive lineman to win the MVP in a Super Bowl."

"All week when I'd get interviewed, the first thing I'd be asked about was the eight sacks," said Dalby after the win. "You know, I got pretty damn tired hearing about those eight sacks."

On Sunday there was one sack, a noncontact thing when Plunkett scrambled and took a dive one yard short of the line. The running game wasn't overpowering -- 117 yards on 34 carries -- but it was solid enough, particularly on first down, to set up enough short-yardage and medium-yardage situations to keep the Eagles guessing, to keep their nickel defense off the field. The Raiders picked up 68 yards on 15 first-down rushing plays, a 4.5 average.

Then there was the pass protection. It kept Plunkett comfortable in the pocket, gave him the assurance he could throw deep when he wanted to. "After the last Philly game, we started talking about shortening our routes, because Jim wasn't getting enough time to get us the ball," said Flanker Bobby Chandler, who caught four passes for 77 yards Sunday. "Well, Jimmy settled down and the line settled down, and I'm glad we didn't change anything."

Plunkett had to scramble a few times, but he wasn't being chased into danger zones, as he was in the November game. His scrambles bought time, screwed up the defense and got him out of trouble. When Plunkett hit Branch for the first touchdown of the game, the two-yarder, he set it up by stepping up into the pocket, by freezing Herman Edwards, the cornerback, and John Bunting, the linebacker, just enough to allow Branch to bend his pattern back in toward Plunkett and get open. Plunkett set up his next TD, the 80-yarder to King, with a scramble to his left, and then a quick decision -- should he go to his primary receiver, Chandler, who was running a deep crossing pattern, right to left, or should he hit King, who was 19 yards down the left sideline, covered by Edwards? He chose King. Edwards leaped for the interception and missed, and it was a footrace.

Now the Raiders were up 14-0 in the first quarter; they were in command. They got away from their bump-and-run defense and hung back in a zone, and Eagle Quarterback Ron Jaworski attacked it intelligently, throwing slants and crossing stuff underneath, catching Oakland in occasional mixups, generally staying away from Linebacker Ted Hendricks' coverage on the left side.

"He wasn't frustrated, even when the game was hopeless for them," Hendricks said. "You can pick up frustration by looking at someone's face, but I didn't see it in him. He was calm. He didn't get excited, no matter what happened, a drop or an interception. He wasn't kicking the ground or yelling at anybody."

cont'd....

[Angry Pope]

cont'd...

Jaworski, who was pressured a few times but not sacked, picked up 291 yards passing, but most of the game he found himself with a long way to travel and a lot of points to make up. Four of his passes were dropped. Three were intercepted by Right Linebacker Rod Martin. The Raiders were tough against the run, yielding only 69 yards on 26 carries, but their pass defense showed occasional lapses. Cornerback Hayes was beaten deep by Charles Smith for 43 yards, and Wilbert Montgomery hurt Oakland more with his receiving -- 91 yards -- than with his rushing -- 44 yards. And Ray Guy, who predicted he might hit one of the Superdome's gondolas, which were 200 feet up, with a punt, kicked low liners on his first two tries.

The solid part of the Raiders' operation was the pass-catch game, with Plunkett attacking first Edwards on the Eagles' right side and then, in the second half, rookie Left Cornerback Roynell Young. Give the man time and he'll win the Super Bowl MVP trophy. Quarterbacks will always be MVPs until the guys who vote finally figure out that it might be a good idea to consider an offensive lineman for the award.

Upshaw had been the star of the midweek practices, especially the Wednesday workout which, Free Safety Burgess Owens said, "was so intense and vicious that I thought Tom would have to call it off." Wednesday was defense day, and Upshaw got into a brief punchup with Defensive End Dave Browning. "It always involves punches," Upshaw said. "These are the Raiders, remember?"

Thursday was offense day, and this time Upshaw's sparring partner was Phil Livingston, a jayvee defensive tackle. "Go hard," Al Davis told the rookie. "Make him work."

"I tried to kick him," Upshaw said. "I don't want to say where, but all the regulars got mad at me because the kid had just gotten married. They started calling me Conrad Upshaw. I apologized."

When they weren't tangling, the Raider offensive linemen were perfecting a technique born from the eight-sack game in Philly, an aggressive, jamming maneuver designed to cut off the defenders before they got into their stunts. "What they had done to us in Philly," Upshaw said, "was slant one guy hard to get penetration and then loop the outside guys, Carl Hairston and Claude Humphrey, around them, or loop Ken Clarke, a tackle. The inside guy was coming in so hard he was screwing up our whole blocking scheme. We wound up picking each other off. One of their guys would get in free.

"After that game, everybody started doing it to us, teams like San Diego, who'd never showed it before. They all have computers nowadays. They punch a button and they have your whole history. So we had seven more games to practice against that stuff, and finally we found a way to solve the traffic problem. We cut off their jammer early -- sounds like the roller derby, doesn't it? Today we had them running into each other and knocking their own guys off."

So Plunkett completed his comeback season with a 13-for-21, 261-yard day. And Branch, who'd been socked with a $1,000 fine for missing practice eight days before the Super Bowl, wound up with five catches, two for touchdowns.

"My horoscope always reads: miss practice and have a good game," Branch said afterward, enjoying the moment immensely. "I spoke to Joe Greene last week and he said, 'Go down there and enjoy the week, but don't forget what you're there for.'"

So the Raiders had fun. And they paid $15,000 in fines, maybe more.

"I asked Flores, 'Hey, where does all that money go? " Upshaw said. "He said, 'To me.' By the end of the week he had enough for a new BMW. Tom doesn't say a word if you screw up. He just cuts off your wallet. You see that stub in your check and you say, 'Well, I've got another tax deduction.' Yeah, we had guys break curfew this week, but when that door opened today we were ready to play. We peaked at the right time."

The converse is that maybe Philadelphia reached its peak too early in the week -- or too early in the season. Perhaps a closed environment isn't the answer. At least half a dozen Eagles said that the old intensity just wasn't there. Close, but not really the same as when they'd played Dallas and Oakland in November. They didn't know why.

"I'll tell you why," said the 6' 8", 280-pound Matuszak. "Because of their coach. It wasn't their fault. It was his. They weren't ready for what we gave them today. They were overconfident, and he got them that way. He didn't let them go out all week. You can't treat a man like a boy and then expect him to play like a man.

"Wednesday night is my normal night to go out, so I went out, curfew or no curfew. III pay my fine. I walked out the front door. I had nothing to hide. Some guy said he heard the club had hired deputies to stand guard and try to stop me. If I want to go out, I go out. I don't care what kind of deputies they have. Vermeil can't understand that. Hey, use your head, buddy. I couldn't play for him in a million years, and I wouldn't want to."

Al Davis was more generous toward Vermeil, who suddenly became the postgame whipping boy after bringing his team within one game of winning the works. "The man is true to what he believes, and that was good enough to get them here," Davis said. "They're a damn tough team, don't make any mistake about that. The only thing is ... well, it's tough to have a para-military group within the confines of a culture that isn't para-military. You have to adjust. Obviously he feels he doesn't have to. But you must realize that this was his first Super Bowl game."

It was the Raiders' third, with two victories (XI and XV), a number matched by Dallas, Miami and Green Bay and surpassed only by Pittsburgh, which has four. Since 1963 Oakland has been the winningest organization in pro football. Since Davis stepped down (or up) in 1966, the Raiders have had three head coaches -- John Rauch, John Madden and Flores -- and each one has taken the team to a Super Bowl.

"I was proud of all the great old stars who came to our room before the game today," Davis said. "Billy Cannon, Lance Alworth, Bubba Smith, Jim Otto, Clem Daniels. Even Night Train Lane. ... Lester Hayes was thrilled to meet him. It was like a guy getting ready for a heavyweight championship fight, and all the old champions come into his dressing room to wish him luck. Maybe our league should recognize these people, maybe they should make it part of the next Super Bowl production; a night-of-stars type of thing. They could hire an arena for it. It would be thrilling."

Davis went over to Upshaw, the only player left in the dressing room.

"What do you say, are you going to let me retire now?" Upshaw said.

"It's up to you."

"Ah hell, I can't retire. I've got minicamp coming up in March."

An unusual team and an unusual story. The wildest of underdogs, a quarterback who was given up for dead long ago, a team that might not be in Oakland next year. Let's hear it for the Halfway House.

[Angry Pope]

On Art.......

It was rumored that Shell, at 6-5, 315, could dunk a basketball two-handed, behind his back, from a standing start.

[Angry Pope]

From linebacker Duane Benson....

When I told Duane of my own experience with Madden that day, how he'd actually given some thought to my situation, Duane wasn't surprised. "You can tell a lot by just the questions they ask you," he said. Elaborating, Duane explained that after he'd made the team, he started getting calls from Al Davis. "Who's our best running back?" Al'd want to know. At first Duane was put off by the questioning, because he was uncomfortable judging other players. So he told Davis that wasn't his job. "My job is to play linebacker." Davis would suck his teeth and say, "F---, I know what your job is." So Duane, to be safe, would pick somebody obscure. "Larry Todd," he'd say. Davis would recoil. "Larry Todd? Why?"

"See, Al wanted to tell you who he thought was best," Duane said. "But it was more important for him to hear what you thought. Madden was the same way. 'What would you do if you were putting together a game plan for the Chiefs?' In Atlanta, Van Brocklin's question was the flip of that: "What am I thinking?" Which was a nonstarter. With Madden and Davis, you always felt like you were an integral part of things."

[Angry Pope]

Here is Al laying the smack down after the game when we beat the Redskins in the Super Bowl...


Al Davis wouldn't leave. He didn't want to let go of the moment, of the scene. Davis, the Raiders' managing general partner, was dressed in a white V-neck sweater and a black leather pull-over, and when he talked, he leaned very close to his listener. His words carried the weight of a great secret revealed to modern man. "We could have scored 50 today," he said, "but we shut it down in the third quarter. This is the greatest team we've ever had, one of the greatest in history, hell, one of the greatest of all time in any professional sport. Next year, God, wait till next year, the depth we have on this team...."

[Angry Pope]

More smack from Al....also after the Super Bowl...

Someone asked Davis a technical football question, and he stared at the guy for a moment. "Look," he said, "we play a two-back offense; we play man-to-man, bump-and-run, pass defense. Our quarterbacks call their own plays -- we don't have coordinators. Some of the other teams -- well, all the technical stuff they use is getting so technical I don't think they understand it themselves."

Technical football. A slap at Redskin coach Joe Gibbs and the Air Coryell show in San Diego, a pointed dig at football of the '80s, with its one-back offenses and motion and multiple sets and everything. O.K., let's not be too hard on Gibbs, just because his Skins were shut down Sunday. The guy won last year's Super Bowl with his approach, and one blowout couldn't erase the magnificence of this season, with its 16-3 record.

[Angry Pope]

Lester Hayes joining in...these guys kill me...

Hayes and Haynes were brilliant Sunday. The Redskins' wideouts, Charlie Brown and Art Monk, didn't catch any of the seven passes thrown to them in the first half, when the game was still a game. Close your eyes and you could see Willie Brown and Kent McCloughan playing the corners for the Raiders in that same bump-and-run style, the old Oakland style devised to combat the wild passing orgies of the early AFL.

"Smurfs," Hayes said afterward in the locker room, grinning widely, using the nickname for some of Washington's receiving corps."Smurfs, ha ha."

"Charlie Brown said he was open all day long and Theismann just didn't have the time to get him the ball," a reporter said, and Hayes threw back his head and howled.

"Oh, that's good," he said. "Very good, indeed. Please tell the Redskin trainers to procure some NoDoz for Charlie, because there's a strong possibility he was dreaming out there."

[Rupert]

Listen to Hayes enlighten the reporters. Deion was never so eloquent.

[Angry Pope]

Phil Villapiano....

A FEW MONTHS AFTER 9/11, I went out to see the Raiders play the Chargers, and it was such a great, patriotic game. I ran into a bunch of Raiders fans, dressed to kill, at a tailgate party in the parking lot.

I saw a guy in a wheelchair, Mitch Oellrich, who had a spinal cord injury. We started talking, and I just thought I could motivate him. I told him, you take my Super Bowl ring, work out three times a day, and asked when he thought he could walk. He said the Super Bowl. I coached him all the way to the end. The day of the Super Bowl, I said, 'If you're not sure, just keep the ring 'til you're ready.' The guy did it, he walked across a casino stage in Reno and it was unbelievable. If you could imagine how big that was, how important that was. The crowd was cheering, and he had my No. 41 on. Oprah Winfrey picked up on it and ended up getting him a scholarship to a gym in San Diego that helps overcome spinal cord injuries. He's on crutches now and he's still trying to walk."

[CrossBones]

I love these "Raider Stories". I could read them all day! :D

[Angry Pope]

A story about Villapiano and Al...

Trades are a part of the game, however, sometimes they still come as a surprise. Just ask Phil Villapiano.

After playing for nine seasons with the Oakland Raiders, the three-time Pro Bowl linebacker thought he was simply answering his home telephone one April morning in 1980.

"Al (Davis) called about nine o’clock on a Sunday morning. He said, ‘I want to ask you about a player, Bobby Chandler.’ I said, ‘Bobby Chandler? I played with him in the Pro Bowl in ‘74 and he’s a helluva nice guy.’ He said, ‘Do you think this guy can take Freddy’s (Biletnikoff) spot?’ I said. ‘I think so. Bobby Chandler would be perfect! The only thing is you’ll probably have to give up somebody good. Who do you have to give up?’ He said, ‘You,’" Villapiano recalled with a laugh. "I said, ‘What? Al, wait a minute! Am I gone?’ He said, ‘You’re gone. But Phil, it’s going to work out fine for you. Chuck Knox really wants you. They need an experienced linebacker. Go there with a good attitude and everything is going to turn out perfect.’"

Villapiano took Davis’ advice and was pleasantly surprised after reporting to the Bills.

[CrossBones]

Oh I remember that story so well.

Classic. But Villapiano still bleeds Silver & Black to this day!

Great story.

[Angry Pope]

The Thursday before our Super Bowl against the Eagles...I believe...

On Thursday there was a fight. Millen vs. Marvin. It was also a set-up, an orchestrated affair. "Sam Boghosian, our offensive line coach, said to me, 'Come in on a blitz and start a fight,'" Millen said. "He told me, 'I want to get something going.' So I did it. I picked on Mickey. I was hoping Shelby Jordan wouldn't pick me up -- he's 6'7", 285 -- but Mickey got me and I started a fight. Sam didn't let the offense in on it. All Mickey knew was that all of a sudden "I'd run over Grimm's mother, too," he said.

[Angry Pope]

Before our Super Bowl with the Vikings....

Jim Finks, general manager of the Vikes from 1964 to '73, cast a pre-game vote of confidence for the NFC champions, declaring, "I'm not convinced that Dave Rowe, Otis Sistrunk and John Matuszak (Raider front three) strike fear into the hearts of anyone. They have played all season, but I don't think they are in the same class as Carl Eller, Alan Page, Doug Sutherland and Jim Marshall (Minnesota front four).

"I believe Minnesota is the better team from player No. 1 through No. 43. Minnesota's linebackers are just as good, their front four are better and their secondary just as good.

"Minnesota also has more ways of scoring. I don't think Oakland can break a play for any distance. Foreman has that ability."

[Angry Pope]

Jon Ritchie account of our last Super Bowl...

`You live and die as a team—and we died': for the Raiders fullback, a wonderful season comes to an unexpected end just short of the team's ultimate goal of winning an NFL championship - Super Bowl 37

Jon Ritchie

I'm stunned. This is about the worst I can feel. Having such high hopes and making it this far, to the pinnacle of achievement as a football team and to fail--how do you describe that? It's a helpless feeling.

This was the opportunity of a lifetime for this Raiders team. Most of us may never play in such a huge game again. We had an unbelievable shot, and we missed the mark. We missed the whole target. We were shooting in the woods somewhere.

I never expected anything like this, losing, 48-21, in the Super Bowl. It's tough to know how to react. Bill Callahan said to take pride in the fact that we made it to a place a lot of teams didn't, but right now I'm not taking any solace in that.

I never imagined that the game would unfold the way it did, with us taking a 3-0 lead and the Buccaneers then scoring 34 consecutive points. All you can say is that they did a great job offensively and defensively. They had our number out there and beat us soundly. No bones about it. That's the only way you can explain what occurred.

They are a speedy defense. They did an amazing job of closing the gap in pass coverage. We hadn't seen a secondary do that, that's for sure. We weren't able to get open, and as a result it ended up throwing off the timing of things. Their speed was very much a detriment to what we were trying to do, especially trying to catch up.

Nothing was working for us. They were everywhere. We've had great success throwing the ball, but it was a tough task to come from behind on a great pass defense like that. They had a superb plan, they executed it to a "T," and they stopped us at what we do best. We felt we were up to the challenge, but we failed.

It was obvious that they were controlling the ball effectively from the get-go, and we were not. It was a frustrating feeling, without a doubt. Not just watching from the sideline as their offense had so much success, but when we got our shot offensively we were not good.

People are going to point to Rich Gannon's performance. Yes, he had five interceptions, three of them returned for touchdowns--but you can't pin it on one guy. Rich is our leader. No one was making the plays when we needed those plays. You live and die as a team--and we died.

I don't know the details about what happened with Barret Robbins, our center, who missed the walk-through Saturday. I thought it was very odd, of course. Here's a guy who loves football and on the eve of the biggest game of his life we didn't know his whereabouts. Knowing how competitive he is and how much this game means to him, I was very worried that he was not all right because I couldn't imagine him not being here. I knew that something had to be wrong, and I was just hopeful that he was all right.

Once we found out that he was physically all right and that measures would be taken, we were excited for Adam Treu's opportunity. Adam is our long snapper and backup center. He started the final 14 games last year after Barret injured a knee, so we had won a lot of games with Adam at center.

I can't say exactly how missing Barret affected the offensive cadence. I'm not up there with the offensive line. There are a lot of calls that need to be made, but Adam is a very smart player--a very aggressive, sound center--and he did a great job.

The situation with Barret wasn't a distraction. That had nothing to do with the outcome of the game. We were outplayed. Our offense couldn't move the ball, and our defense couldn't stop them. They beat us.

I had to come out of the game at the start of the second quarter when my head started bleeding. You don't want to get pulled from the game for being a pulpy mess, but they made me go off and clean up. I have these two calcium deposits on my forehead--I don't remember what it's like not having them--which I'd like to think are from me doing the hitting instead of getting hit. It doesn't hurt right now, but it will later. It's a superficial thing, but it's just been getting worse and worse. I think I'm going to have it looked at. I know they can do some shaving down of the calcium. They have to do some tests and figure out what's going on.

In the locker room at halftime, the mood was that we were still in the game, even though we trailed, 20-3. We were going to get the ball to start the second half. We had been successful all year long with the first drive of each half. We were confident that with a little game-planning, we would be successful. We just had to put a drive together and score, and we would be right back in it.

But we never got on a roll. We went three-and-out; the Bucs mounted a long touchdown drive and then intercepted a pass and returned it for another TD. It was really crazy.

I thought it was great that Jerry Rice caught another touchdown pass in a Super Bowl, but I'm sure that being the kind of competitor he is it didn't make much of a difference. I feel the same way about my 7-yard reception. My personal goals are entirely consumed by the team's goals. The team's goal was to win this game. We didn't do that. As a result, nothing else matters.

Two years ago, when we made it to the AFC championship game against Baltimore, I took it a little bit for granted that we were a team of destiny. We were at home, we were fresher, and the Ravens had already played two games. I had suffered a high ankle sprain near the end of the regular season, and I was really gimping around in the championship game. I played sparingly, and we lost. I wish I could have done more.

My parents had come out from Pennsylvania for the game, and I was so downtrodden afterward that I couldn't even face them. After the game, I drove them back to my house, dropped them off and kept going. I drove to Tilden Park, which is right near my house in Berkeley, to just, I don't know, commune with nature.

I just snapped. I didn't know what I was doing. It was a situation that I couldn't handle. It was just negative sensory overload. I was out there for hours, and it got so dark that I couldn't even see nature to commune with it any longer. It was late by the time I came back home and dragged myself in the front door.

I won't go off the deep end this time. I'm going to spend some time with my fiancee. We're getting married May 2. She has been real patient with my lack of time up to this point. I'm going to relax with her and enjoy a little down time. We're going to go over to Hawaii and watch some of my teammates in the Pro Bowl. That will be my decompression period, I guess.

Eventually, I'll get back to football. I don't know what the situation is with Garrett Giemont, our strength and conditioning coach, but whatever timetable he lays out for the offseason program, I'll be there--until they kick me out.

Right now, my parents, my fiancee and my two best men are waiting for me. I guess we'll go to the postgame party. I might as well go; we have tickets. I'm sure that even though we lost, my family and friends will enjoy just spending time with me now that I'm not so focused on football.

I didn't really take the time to sit back and enjoy being here at all because I was working so hard to prepare for this game and stay focused. Each of the players were given a car for the week, but mine stayed in the parking lot most of the time because I focused everything that I had into getting ready for this game. I didn't want to have to look back and ask myself, "What if I had watched a little more film? What if I had gotten a little extra stretching in? What if I had done this or that at practice? Would I have played better?" I wanted to leave no stone unturned.

Eventually, I'll get over feeling bad. But it's going to take some time.

[CrossBones]

That's just how felt.

Getting there is one thing, losing the big game is something else all together. It just sucks. The Raiders are about winning championships. Anything else is failure in large part.

[Angry Pope]

A story on Tooz....

....Up in the room, I read, watched TV, until around midnight, when I started to drift off. Then a key sounded in the lock, the door flew open, and in staggered Tooz. He was ripped. Hardly able to stand, he was slurring his words. "Quaaludes" was the word that popped into my mind. Weaving as he stood there, Tooz looked around, as if to get his bearings. He had the appearance of a man who'd been hit on the head with a hammer. To his right was our open closet in which hung a single shirt. The shirt belonged to me. A Pendleton flannel, it was one of the few nice shirts I owned and the only one I'd packed for the trip.

"Ohhhh! What a puuurrrty shirt!" Tooz exclaimed. At which point he took off all his clothes, yanked my shirt off its hanger and tried to pull it over his head. Of course Tooz was 6-foot-8 and weighed more than 300 pounds, while I was 6-5 and weighed a little under 250, so my shirt wasn't going to fit him -- and it didn't. As Tooz struggled to squeeze his massive biceps through the shirt's skinny sleeves, both armpits ripped out, leaving the shirt in tatters. I groaned, as Tooz, still naked except for my shirt, wandered out into the hallway and began banging on doors.

In the room, I lay there, wondering what I should do. Before I could make a decision, however, Tooz was back, only now he seemed more disoriented than ever. Staggering over to the window, he tripped, losing his balance. For an instant, it appeared he might slam his head against the wall, but he recovered, grabbing the curtains for support. But then the curtains ripped away and down went Tooz, crashing through the table to land with a thud on the floor. I helped him up, pushed him toward his bed. Collapsing on the mattress, Tooz reached for the telephone. "Gotta .. calll ...Tammmmmpaaa ..." he mumbled. Then he murmured the name of his ex-wife.

Taking advantage of his confusion over how to dial long distance, I hurried over to the door and peeked out. I knew I needed help and, as it happened, Dick Romansky, our equipment manager, was walking by. "Romo," I said. "Where's George? I need a hand with Tooz." George was George Anderson, our veteran trainer. I was sure George would know what to do.

"I'll go get him," Romo said. "He's down in the bar."

Back in the room, as I was explaining to Tooz the nuances of dialing long distance, someone banged on the door. "Dammit, open up!" said the agitated voice. I opened the door and in fell George, tumbling to the floor. As it turned out, George had been sitting in the bar for hours. As Snake would put it, he'd been "overserved."

"Toomay, what in the hell are you trying to do to me!" George yelped, as he scrambled to his feet. "Jesus Christ!"

By now it was almost 1 a.m. As George moved to Tooz, another knock sounded at the door. I opened it and there stood Doc Fink, grinning as he held up his little black bag. Thank God, I thought. Finally, some real help. But Doc Fink was a little giddy himself, since he'd also been down in the bar, drinking with George.

"Tooz, you big dummy, what are you doing?"


Matuszak made road trips unforgettable.
"Valiuuum," Tooz groaned.

Abruptly, Doc Fink turned to me. He was all business. "We won't be giving Tooz any Valium," he said. "We may give him something he might think is Valium. But we won't be giving him any real Valium. I'm sure you've heard of the placebo effect. That's what'll calm him down."

I nodded. George suggested I sleep next door in his room. So I did.

[Angry Pope]

I figured this could go here....a draft profile for Dave Casper....

Dave Casper, offensive tackle/tight end, Notre Dame (6-3, 248)

Has the talent to do a lot of things as a blocker but doesn’t, at least not consistently. … Has strength, blocking quickness and balance, but if he is not directly involved in the play he is just a stand-around. … They say he sort of walks like a farmer plugging through a plowed field but he sure runs with fluidness. … As a TE, he got open short and caught the ball. … I don’t think he can contribute as a pro TE. … Can be good but will tax the best of coaches.

Projection: Make roster and improve; fourth-, fifth-round pick

[Angry Pope]

Draft time....

Late today the Raiders announced they have traded up to get New Orleans' No. 2 pick in the upcoming draft.

The Raiders sent WR Daryl Hobbs and three draft picks to the Saints, which gave Oakland the first-round plum and also a high sixth-round pick (#3, 166th overall).

In addition to Hobbs, the Raiders gave up their first-round pick (10th overall), their second-round choice (39th overall), and their fourth-round pick (107th overall).

"This is where we wanted to be—the No. 2 spot," senior assistant Bruce Allen said.

[Angry Pope]

Joe Bugel quirk....

New Raiders coach Joe Bugel says he'd like to spend two hours a day talking with team president Al Davis. Thanks, Davis replies, but two hours a week of face time with his coach will suffice.

[Angry Pope]

Here is an audio from back on September 10, 1978 of the final minutes of the "Holy Roller" game against the Chargers. It is legendary Bill King doing the play-by-play. It starts when we were down 20-7. The audio plays almost instantly.....

Press to play.... (http://www.bayarearadio.org/audio/raiders/raiders-chargers_sept-10-1978.ram)

[CrossBones]

On of my favorites there AP!

[Angry Pope]

Here is Kenny Stabler fishing with two buddies and talking about the reason John Madden will not travel by airplane.....

Hit it here... (http://woodsandwateroutdoorshow.com/video/stabler.wmv)

[Angry Pope]

Here is a story on Foo...

Favorite Super Bowl interview -- 1977 in Pasadena, Raiders vs. Vikings. Make that most valuable interview. I'm in Phil Villapiano's room one afternoon. Those were the days when you could interview players anywhere at all. My Jersey buddy and all his paisans are there, sitting around, eating hero sandwiches, drinking sodas and beer.

"Hey, you ever bet on games?" says Phil, the Raiders' outside linebacker.

"I can't ... it wouldn't be professional," I told him.

"C'mon ... you work for the New York Post, and I know the guys on that paper bet their asses off." Which, of course, was true. Our sports editor, for instance, was a huge investor. So I told him, yeah, there was action in that office.

"Well, do 'em all a favor and tell 'em to put the house on us," Phil said. "No way we won't cover 6 1/2."

I thanked him and so did the guys on the Post. Final score: Raiders 32, Vikes 14. Valuable interview, huh?

[Angry Pope]

Here is a video on Cliff Branch....

Hit it here..... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq1piV4YxoY&search=oakland%20raiders)

[Angry Pope]

Birdwell....

Dan Birdwell. The day this defensive tackle vomited all over the ball (and the Denver center’s hands) after a night on the town, may have been the top fable in 45 years of Raider trivia. Let’s not forget the time he tried to cheat on bed-check by sticking a floor lamp under the covers of his bed at the El Roacho Tropicana in Santa Rosa to go out on a carousing binge. Didn’t work. When the bed-check coach got to Birdy’s room and flipped the wall switch, he nearly keeled over when what was supposed to be Birdwell’s snoozing body began to glow.

[Angry Pope]

Here are video highlights and comments of the "Holy Roller" game....

Hit it here.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7jhvNLYiMA&search=raiders)

[Angry Pope]

Here is a video about Todd Christensen...

Hit it here... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z83ls7raL-Q&search=christensen%20raiders)

[Angry Pope]

Charles Philyaw...


The training camp mush-brain. For most coaches and players the condition begins to clear with the opening of the regular season and is usually gone altogether by the second or third league game. Not so for Charles Philyaw, a 6-9, 325-pound Oakland Raider whose first exposure to training camp french fried his frontal lobes. It must've. How else to explain what Charlie said to fullback Mark Van Eeghen two years later, as the pair filed out on the field before an AFC title game with the Denver Broncos?

"Hey, Van," said Charlie. "How come you got your first name on the back of your jersey when the rest of us don't?"

[CrossBones]

Another of Al's projects that went South!

Charles Philyaw...ooooooooh the memories!

[Angry Pope]

Lester and Howie....

One of the best teams for quotes was the Raiders. I remember making the rounds of the tent that served as their midweek interview area before they played the Redskins in Super Bowl XVIII. As the crush of reporters closed in on him, Howie Long closed his eyes, tilted his head back and uttered a stream of consciousness I've always remembered as a prefect Press Interview Day capsule.

"Give me a day to die ... are we in Kansas yet, Toto? ... I don't know where I am ... oh God, I'm in a tent ... "

And two tables away, Lester Hayes was leading the writers through this weird Star Wars angle: "I honestly can feel myself getting my power from the Force. When it is with me, I am able to play. I am very very close to Obi-Wan Kenobi." And on and on in this vein, the writers dutifully writing down every word.

"How do you think up this stuff?" I asked him afterward.

"Aren't they amazing?" he said, wide eyed. "They wrote it all down. They were all serious. I could have told them anything. Wait till you hear what I have for them tomorrow."

[Angry Pope]

Here is a video on some ol'timers...

Hit it here... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=273HvjlVbN8&search=christensen%20raiders)

[Angry Pope]

Alzado....

When Denver played Dallas in the '78 Super Bowl, I was doing a book with Lyle Alzado: Mile High, the Story of Lyle Alzado and the Amazing Denver Broncos. Berkeley Books was paying me $8,500, which was exactly what I needed because my ex-wife had just totaled our station wagon. The snapper was that the book had to be done in eight days. Eight days? Was it humanly possible?

I asked Dave Anderson of the New York Times, who had done his share of quickie books. "It's possible," he said, "but if you do it, you'll wind up in the hospital."

Well, I did it ... and wound up in the hospital. Lenox Hill in NYC. Back went out. Oh yes, I was also covering the Super Bowl for the Post. And the paper informed the publisher that it wanted to run daily excerpts of the book, excerpts I had to give them. So I was living in a two-hours-of-sleep-per-night semi-daze, not quite sure what I was writing ... book, excerpts, Post story, what? Except that I had to keep cranking it out.

The Cowboys won, which didn't help our sales. But Alzado had had a terrific game, two sacks and a lot of tackles and forces and things. Afterward, I'm in the Broncos' locker room, and Alzado grabs me. "I've gotta talk to you." Now that's not an easy place, a postgame Super Bowl locker, with everybody crowding around players for quotes, etc. But Lyle took me way in the back, behind some washing machines and things, way way back there. What the hell ... ?

I couldn't figure out what was going on. Had the book deal been canceled? Someone died? "I've got to know something," Alzado said. What? What? Tell me. Know what?

"How'd I play?" he said. "Terrific," I assured him, and only then could we go back out and rejoin the mob.

[Angry Pope]

Birdwell....

To what else can one attribute the mysterious agitation that stalked Raiders linebacker Dan Birdwell as he strode into the training room one morning early in camp, that prompted him, upon finding guard Wayne Hawkins cleaning out his ears with a swab stick, to launch an open-palmed roundhouse right that crushed the swab stick into Hawkins' head?

[Angry Pope]

Here is a video of our battles against the Chargers....

We Ready.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrZIINGJb0A&search=we%20ready%20raiders)

[Angry Pope]

Stabler, Banaszak, and Biletnikoff...

Duane told me there weren't many cliques on the team, the social lines were fluid, but if there was Raiders royalty, these guys were it. Of the 60 or so rooms at the El Rancho, they occupied room No. 147, one of the few suites. The room was Party Central. Rented refrigerators were stocked with beer. Paraphernalia from the local porn shop dangled from nearly every hanging place. Nightly regulars on "The Circuit" -- a round of the most popular Santa Rosa, Calif., night spots -- the trio were never themselves. They'd pretend to be cropdusters, or doctors. They regaled the local talent with so many outrageous tales that Banaszak, at least, couldn't keep track of them all. "I've told so many lies, I don't know what's true anymore," was a recent confession.

[Angry Pope]

Big Ben....

To what else can one attribute the aberrant behavior of Big Ben Davidson, who, after every two-a-day practice, would collect the husks of discarded tape and mash them into a ball -- a ball that by the end of camp would become so large that the equipment manager, to move it out of the locker room, had first to cut it up with a chainsaw?

[Angry Pope]

Charles Philyaw....

At the recent weigh-in, Charlie had stepped up on the scale wearing one of those Rommell greatcoats that were all the rage. Charlie had a weight clause in his contract, so he was upset when the scale showed him to be a few pounds over, since it meant he would be fined. "You big dummy," said center Dave Dalby. "Take off your coat!" Charlie, stepping off the scale, took off his coat, slung it over his arm, stepped back up. "It's still the same!" he bellowed.

[Angry Pope]

Philyaw.....

After being drafted, Charlie was flush with bonus cash, so he bought a Lincoln Mark IV. At 6-9, however, Charlie couldn't fit into the car unless the moon roof was open. A day or so after making the purchase, Charlie pulled into the Raiders fieldhouse, his head poking out of the hole, eyes peering over the roof, as he negotiated the lot. It was a cloudy day and as Charlie parked, it started to rain. Yelping, Charlie reached for the instrument panel, clicked a switch. As the moon roof started to close, it caught Charlie by the neck, pinning him between the sliding panel and the edge of the roof. "Arrgghh!" he shrieked.

After extricating himself, Charlie was blustering about the car as he walked into the locker room. "It just don't fit me," he complained to Rowe. "Well, why did you buy it?" Dave asked. Charlie gave him a look. "It were a good deal!"

[Angry Pope]

Here is a video of "The Sea Of Hands" game...

Hit it here.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2NR71Ep_3o&search=sea%20hands%20raiders)

[Rupert]

Those Philyaw quotes are classics!

[Angry Pope]

George Buehler....

Were playing the Kansas City Chiefs in Kansas City and on this particular play it was like third down and ten, we were about mid field. Stabler dropped back to pass and he got hit from behind while his arm was back and he fumbled. I was in the back field and the ball hit the turf and I was ready to fall on it and the thing bounced right up into my arms. I took off running and ran around the left end and I made a first down and a defensive back knocked me out of bounds. The interesting thing was the following Tuesday when we went back to watch the game films when this play came up Madden just let it run through once instead of going back and fourth and he said I guess we’ll just let that one lye. The reason that he said that was the guy that knocked the ball out of Stabler’s hand was my guy. I was so close to the ball because I was supposed to be covering the guy that forced the fumble.

[Angry Pope]

Our defensive line coach, Keith Millard, may not have played for us but he should have...

....having a fastpitch softball double header called off because Keith Millard got bored during training camp in Mankato, drove up to the town where I lived 10 miles away, and did donuts on three of the four fields. I only missed those two games, but a week's worth were called off. And it took the Vikings over two years to eventually pay for the re-sodding like they said they would.

[Angry Pope]

Here is a video of our Raiders...past, present, and future...

Part I.... (http://youtube.com/watch?v=j1ZpH8sB5O8&mode=related&search=)

[Angry Pope]

Part II...... (http://youtube.com/watch?v=yMDqjAc-VOQ&mode=related&search=)

[Angry Pope]

Part III... (http://youtube.com/watch?v=HoKPScuBB-U&mode=related&search=)

[Angry Pope]

Part IV..... (http://youtube.com/watch?v=J-AhEJjdcX0&mode=related&search=)

[Angry Pope]

Here is a short video of Super Bowl XI..."Old Man Willie"...

Hit it here... (http://youtube.com/watch?v=gYNHRuLfGiM)

[Angry Pope]

Todd Christensen...

While Todd was a member of the Raiders, he and his wife invited a teammate and his wife, Burgess and Josie Owens, to Thanksgiving dinner. “My wife has this tradition of putting kernels of corn on everyone’s plate prior to eating,” he said. “We have to pick them up and say something that we are grateful for. Also dining with us that night were a couple of elders who asked Burgess and Josie some questions. The Owens were impressed with the experience and the way that we lived our lives. They were baptized on New Year’s Day in 1983.”

[Angry Pope]

Here is a video of the personalities of our Raiders in the past....

Hit it here.... (http://youtube.com/watch?v=273HvjlVbN8&search=raiders%20misfits)

[Angry Pope]

Philyaw....

During one game, the button on the Gatorade bucket got stuck and Charlie, panic stricken, stood there filling up cup after cup until somebody rescued him by tipping the vat and stopping the flow. Then there was the time Charlie got hurt and needed an X-ray. Trainer George Anderson told him where to go, but the directions were complicated. "Whoa, whoa, whoa," Charlie said. "Say it again." George repeated the directions a second time, then a third, when Charlie still seemed unsure. "Got it?" George asked. "I think so," Charlie said. "But where am I now?"

[Angry Pope]

Madden......

As I discovered that night, however, John Madden had a different approach. For the first order of business in the team meeting that night was to view the highlight film of the championship season. The room, as the film began to roll, went nuts. When Jack Tatum smacked Sammy White, and White's helmet went flying, Tatum was nearly mobbed; chants went up -- Tate! Tate! -- and Jack seemed almost embarrassed by all the attention.

The same sort of response greeted 35-year-old Willie Brown as the camera showed him in slow-motion close-up chugging up the sidelines with his game-clinching interception, glancing over his shoulder at the receding Vikings -- Muff! Muff! Even head coach John Madden himself was unmercifully teased as he shuffled along the sideline and attempted to jump when somebody scored. He flushed, as he sat there, reveling in the moment.

[Angry Pope]

Al Davis on the Brady fumble...

Hit it here... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtpKsG-s_nw&search=raiders)

[CrossBones]

Al Davis on the Brady fumble...

Hit it here... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtpKsG-s_nw&search=raiders)Al was pissed.

Charles was even more pissed!

[Angry Pope]

George Buehler...

I guess I can tell the story now; this may be the first time I’ve ever let this out. I went to Stanford University and I’m not known for my scholarship so it wasn’t the best experience I wasn’t as successful there as I would have liked to be. I thought draft day was the opportunity to go somewhere I was daydreaming of being in Miami or New York or Dallas and all of a sudden I get a call from the Oakland Tribune and he tells me I’d been drafted by the Raiders. I thought “oh my god”. I actually had to disguise my voice, I tried but I couldn’t I said, “oh I’m so happy, I don’t know what to say” in a very monotone voice. That hurt but thank goodness I was drafted by the Raiders from there it was all up hill, I still live in the Bay Area even though my last year and a half I played in Cleveland. I’m thrilled that I played with the Raiders.

[Angry Pope]

Philyaw.....

The stories continued to pour out. How Charlie locked his keys in the car with the headlights on and the motor running. Or the time he forgot his game shoes and asked Cliff Branch if he had an extra pair. "Sure, Charlie," said Cliff, who wore size nines. "What size you wear?" "Seventeens."

[Angry Pope]

I guess this can go here....James Jett tribute video...

Hit it here.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t24-avUwUSU&search=raiders)

[Angry Pope]

Banaszak, Stabler, Biletnikoff and Al...

"Rooster!" Duane yelled at Pete, as we got out of the car. "Stub!" Banaszak yelled back. And for a few minutes, the four of them jabbered, exchanging insults, jokes. Then, behind us, perhaps 30 yards away, Al Davis emerged from between the buildings. Hair slicked back, wearing a black shirt and baggy white pants, Al was slouching across the parking lot toward another part of the motel, oblivious of the impromptu gathering of players.

"Look at him," Banaszak said.

"There he goes," said Snake.

"The Genius," said Biletnikoff.

"The Messiah," cackled Pete.

Freddy cupped his hands around his mouth. "Mr. Davis!" he called out. Davis stopped, turned, as Freddy held up one hand, making the "inch" sign with his thumb and forefinger. "The rough's a little long on 18!"

Davis shook his head, laughed. Giving Fred a dismissive wave, he went on his way. Again, I was astonished. Telling the owner his training camp was a country club was something you just didn't do.

[Angry Pope]

Here is the roster and how we put together our 1983 Raiders who defeated the Redskins in the Superbowl....

Marcus Allen RB

Drafted in 1982 by our Raiders in round 1 and number 10 overall.

Lyle Alzado DE

Drafted in 1971 by the Denver Broncos in round 4 number 79 overall.
Traded to our Raiders in 1982 by Cleveland to reduce their salary cap burden.

Chris Bahr K

Drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in 1976 in round 2 number 51 overall.
Became a Raider in 1980.


Jeff Barnes LB

Drafted by our Raiders in 1977 in round 5, number 139 overall.

Malcolm Barnwell WR

Drafted by our Raiders in 1980 in round 7, number 173 overall.

Rick Berns RB

Drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1979 in round 3, number 80 overall.
Became a Raider in 1982.

Don Bessillieu S

Drafted by the Miami Dolphins in 1979 in round 5, number 134 overall.
Became a Raider in 1983.

Cliff Branch WR

Drafted by our Raiders in 1972 in round 4, number 98 overall.

Darryl Byrd LB

Went undrafted.
Became a Raider in 1983.

Tony Caldwell LB

Drafted by our Raiders in 1983 in round 3, number 82 overall.


Todd Christensen TE-RB

Drafted by the Dallas Cowboys in 1978 in round 2, number 56 overall.
Became a Raider in 1979

Dave Dalby C

Drafted by our Raiders in 1972 in round 4, number 100 overall.

Bruce Davis T

Drafted by our Raiders in 1979 in round 11, number 294 overall.

James Davis CB

Drafted by our Raiders in 1981 in round 5, number 118 overall.

Mike Davis S

Drafted by our Raiders in 1977 in round 2, number 35 overall.

Ray Guy P

Drafted by our Raiders in 1973 in round 1, number 23 overall.

Charley Hannah OG

Drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1977 in round 3, number 56 overall.
Became a Raider in 1983.

Don Hasselbeck TE

Drafted by the New England Patriots in 1977 in round 2, number 52 overall.
Became a Raider in 1983.

Frank Hawkins RB

Drafted by our Raiders in 1981 in round 10, number 276 overall.

Lester Hayes CB

Drafted by our Raiders in 1977 in round 5, number 126 overall.

Mike Haynes CB

Drafted by the New England Patriots in 1976 in round 1, number 5 overall.
We traded, in November of 1983, a 1984 first round draft selection, and a 1985 second round draft selection to New England.
Became a Raider in 1983.

Ted Hendricks LB

Drafted by the Baltimore Colts in 1969 in round 2, number 33 overall.
Became a Raider in 1975.


Kenny Hill S

Drafted by our Raiders in 1980 in round 8, number 194 overall.

David Humm QB

Drafted by our Raiders in 1975 in round 5, number 128 overall.
We reacquired him in 1983.

Derrick Jensen RB

Drafted by our Raiders in 1978 in round 3, number 57 overall.

Shelby Jordan T

Drafted by our Raiders in 1973 in round 7, number 157 overall.

Kenny King RB

Drafted by the Houston Oilers in 1979 in round 3, number 72 overall.
Became a Raider in 1980.

Reggie Kinlaw NT

Drafted by our Raiders in 1979 in round 12, number 320 overall.

Henry Lawrence T

Drafted by our Raiders in 1974 in round 1, number 19 overall.

Howie Long DE

Drafted by our Raiders in 1981 in round 2, number 48 overall.

Rod Martin LB

Drafted by our Raiders in 1977 in round 12, number 317 overall.

Mickey Marvin G

Drafted by our Raiders in 1977 in round 4, number 112 overall.

cont'd...

[Angry Pope]

cont'd...

Vann Mc Elroy S

Drafted by our Raiders in 1982 in round 3, number 64 overall.

Odis Mc Kinney S

Drafted by the New York Giants in 1978 in round 2, number 37 overall.
Became a Raider in 1980.

Matt Millen LB

Drafted by our Raiders in 1980 in round 2, number 43 overall.

Cleo Montgomery RB

Went undrafted in 1980 and signed with the Cincinnati Bengals.
Became a Raider in 1981.

Don Mosebar T

Drafted by our Raiders in 1983 in round 1, number 26 overall.

Calvin Muhammad WR

Drafted by our Raiders in 1980 in round 12, number 322 overall.

Ed Muransky T

Drafted by our Raiders in 1982 in round 4, number 91 overall.

Bob Nelson LB

Drafted by the Buffalo Bills in 1975 in round 2, number 42 overall.
Became a Raider in 1980.

Irvin Phillips CB

Drafted by the San Diego Chargers in 1981 in round 3, number 77 overall.
Did not play in 1982.
Became a Raider in 1983.

Bill Pickel NT

Drafted by our Raiders in 1983 in round 2, number 54 overall.

Jim Plunkett QB

Drafted by the New England Patriots in 1971 in round 1, number 1 overall.
Became a Raider in 1979.

Greg Pruitt RB

Drafted by the Cleveland Browns in 1973 in round 2, number 30 overall.
Became a Raider in 1982.

Derrick Ramsey TE

Drafted by our Raiders in 1978 in round 5, number 136 overall.
Only played two games for us.

Archie Reese NT

Drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in 1978 in round 5, number 127 overall.
Became a Raider in 1982.

Johnny Robinson NT

Drafted by our Raiders in 1981 in round 4, number 111 overall.

Jim Romano C

Drafted by our Raiders in 1982 in round 2, number 37 overall.

Jack Squirek LB

Drafted by our Raiders in 1982 in round 2, number 35 overall.

Dave Stalls NT

Drafted by the Dallas Cowboys in 1977 in round 7, number 191 overall.
Became a Raider in 1983.

Steve Sylvester C-G

Drafted by our Raiders in 1975 in round 10, number 259 overall.

Greg Townsend DE

Drafted by our Raiders in 1983 in round 4, number 110 overall.

Ted Watts CB

Drafted by our Raiders in 1981 in round 1, number 21 overall.

Dokie Wlliams WR

Drafted by our Raiders in 1983 in round 5, number 138 overall.

Chester Willis RB

Drafted by our Raiders in 1981 in round 11, number 304 overall.

Marc Wilson QB

Drafted by our Raiders in 1980 in round 1, number 15 overall.

[RaiderIVlife]

Anyone else notice that most of these dudes were drafted by the Raiders. The veteran additions were selectively chosen as a means of fine tuning the team. I think Al Davis has made FA the basis of his philosophy over the past 10+ years and it largely hasn't worked outside of 2002 (Rod Woodson / Bill Romanowski). Then again hindsight is always 20-20. Had more of our draft selections panned out, then I wouldn't even be making this comment.

Who's in charge of the draft?

[Rupert]

RIVL: Absolutely! Take a look at the current roster. Oh my God! It's so heavy with our own draft picks its sick! And is that an omen of a better team this season?

Look at that starting QB, we've gone outside the organization. The backups: a promising kid and a long-term backup.

Al Davis has been working the same model for years. People keep saying he's lost it. But he keeps proving them wrong. We didn't get back to the SuperBowl by accident. But many lay that at the feet of Jon Gruden. Oh sure, Gruden got the coaching job by holding a gun to Al's forehead for 4 years. If that strategy worked, why was he sent home the first time he interviewed?

It's funny. Al has always drafted the same way. Raider fans complain about it endlessly. Al has always approached the free agent market the same way, and the complaints are still there.

After winning one of those home poker tournaments (weren't those all the rage for a couple years?) one of the guy's I beat asked the runner up and I how we bet those big money hands. I blurted out, "The same way I bet the low dollar hands." My oponent said he changes his strategy depending upon the stakes. And I said, "It's always about risk and reward, I always estimate the risk, and determine the reward. I take the same approach when the stakes are small as when the stakes are high. What are my odds and how much do I have to risk. Then I determine if the risk outweighs the odds." In the end, you're cards determine your approach to the game. In poker you can bluff, in football you cannot.

Al Davis has always taken the same approach because there's no bluffing in football, only in the front office, because the cards are not randomly distributed. Getting the right cards is the new game in football.

[Angry Pope]

The Governor....


Gene Upshaw initially had planned a career in politics after his playing career was over. His father, Gene Sr., had been politically active, serving on the city council back in Upshaw's hometown of Robstown, Texas, and also running for mayor. During his 15 years with the Oakland Raiders, Upshaw - who was nicknamed "The Governor" by his teammates - was actively involved with the Democratic Party. Then-California Gov. Jerry Brown had appointed him to a couple of state boards, and he even considered a run for the state Assembly when he retired.

"I knew that's what I wanted to do," Upshaw says. "But I never got the chance. I ended up coming here."

[Angry Pope]

Here is a draft profile for Cliff Branch...

Cliff Branch, flanker, Colorado (5-10 1/2, 169)

[Scouted during ’72 Hula Bowl] Still feel the same way about Branch, although he did catch the ball in practice a little better than I thought he could but not much. … He’s a little bigger than I thought he was. … Don’t believe this boy is very tough. … The footing wasn’t the best but he fell down too many times. … A couple of times I got the impression he was hunting for a place to lay down. Could be wrong on this. … I still feel this is a very dangerous football player but it’s going to take a far better passer than these QBs to hit him cause I don’t think he is going to catch the off-thrown ball well. … There is also no doubt that with his great speed he can kill a club.

Projection: Make roster and improve; fourth-, fifth-round pick

[Angry Pope]

Some may have already known this...



The Raiders once wore silver road jerseys. Television had a problem with the reflection of the silver on sunny days, so the NFL asked them to change...which they did.

[Angry Pope]

Here is a video on our classic defense...

Hit it here... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEa7bqUD2ns)

[Angry Pope]

Here is a video on Jim Plunkett...

Hit it here... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEdrDit11EY&search=raiders)

[Angry Pope]

Here is a video on Tom Flores....

Hit it here.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3hX8TUg_6Q&search=raiders)

[Angry Pope]

Here is a video of our Raiders in the HOF...

Hit it here... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKPSNH9Z)

[Angry Pope]

Archie Reese....

Hit it here... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8Nw7O-bNSc&search=raiders)

[Angry Pope]

Video of the 500th MNF game...our highlights....

Hit it here... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DygU-YYOSCs&search=raiders)

[Angry Pope]

Highlights of our 2002 season....

Part VI.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8ccyJdXGrI&search=raiders)

[Angry Pope]

Highlights of our 2002 season....

Part V.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyShUBcRj2w&search=raiders)

[Angry Pope]

Highlights of our 2002 season....

Part IV.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYbz5zzZChI&search=raiders)

[Angry Pope]

Highlights of our 2002 season...

Part III.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAcXxHg-TZw&search=raiders)

[Angry Pope]

Highlights of our 2002 season....

Part II... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRJ7aVLJP54&search=raiders)

[Angry Pope]

Randy's 2005 highlights...

Hit it here... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws2oqdMTG9o&search=raiders)

[Angry Pope]

Here is a video of Raider moments from the Art Shell era...

Hit it here... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD-RXiiNZcQ&search=raiders)

[Angry Pope]

Here is a video of Cliff Branch in the "Sea Of Hands" and a 99 yard TD reception...

Hit it here... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG15AMoyUnY&search=raiders)

[Angry Pope]

Here is another Randy Moss video...

Hit it here... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ZyJzLTt6g&search=raiders)

[Angry Pope]

Here is a video with Greg Townsend highlights...

Hit it here... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDuuYZibmWw)

[Angry Pope]

Here is a video entitled..Raider Love...

Hit it here.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Yw2570budQ)

[Angry Pope]

Here is a video of Raider returns for TDs through the years...

Hit it here.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhKwL9VKCIo)

[Angry Pope]

Here is a video on Huff...it should be different than the other ones but parts of it I remember......

Hit it here... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBIDfp0omes)

[CrossBones]

Here is a video on Huff...it should be different than the other ones but parts of it I remember......

Hit it here... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBIDfp0omes)I'd like to see some of those interceptions translated into the Silver & Black's defense. That would be a breath of fresh air.

[Angry Pope]

Here is a video on our Super Bowl against the Eagles...


Part I.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY4GUg4yvl4)


Part II... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMy1yzwRP_M)


Part III... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjhLb0fBWh4)

[Angry Pope]

Here is a story on Pat Toomay....

#17, Pat Toomay, Edison, Football, 1966
Three-sport athlete from a different era.

Mirza Kurspahic
August 16, 2006


Although he considered himself a basketball player in high school, Pat Toomay went on to have an amazing NFL career. He was a Super Bowl champion with Dallas, a member of a winless team with Tampa Bay and was coached by John Madden while in Oakland. "I went from a penthouse to a doghouse and back to a penthouse," said Toomay of his career in the National Football League.
A 1966 Edison graduate, Toomay was an all-state athlete in football, basketball and baseball. His athleticism - perhaps inherited from his father who played professional basketball - still sticks out in the minds of coaches and administrators from the 1960's.

"As a three-sport star, Toomay achieved as much as any athlete in Northern Virginia," said former Hammond High School baseball coach - later the football coach at T.C. Williams - Glenn Furman. "Here I am 40 years later, and I am still remembering him as being that formidable." Furman recalled the day Toomay pitched a no-hitter against Hammond in a 1-0 playoff win.

While Furman remembers Toomay's pitching, it was not baseball that was his claim to fame. Toomay considered himself a basketball player first while in high school. His 6-foot-5 frame helped Edison basketball record victories during the school's early days. The Edison coach at the time, Carl Hensley, said Toomay was the only player he coached for all four years in his 33-year coaching history.

"He was highly intelligent, and he brought that to his play," said Hensley. "That helped all of us. He was a very cooperative player, eager to do what we wanted him to do."

HENSLEY SAID THAT Fairfax County schools - not just Edison - could not really compete with the Arlington and Alexandria schools in basketball at the time. In order to expose his players to better competition, Hensley scheduled summer and spring league games in Washington. "What we looked for [in Washington] was competition, and that helped Pat. He had to adjust to playing against better competition," said Hensley.

At the time, the schools in the area were segregated, and Hensley scheduled a lot of the games against black schools from Washington. Toomay remembers when Eastern High School - a black school in Washington - came to Edison to play the Eagles in a scrimmage. One of the Eastern players was shooting free throws, and Toomay was waiting for a possible rebound, blocking out a player by the name of Louie West. West put his hand on Toomay's shoulder, and as the ball bounced off the rim, West used Toomay to boost himself above the rim and slam dunk the basketball through the hoop. "The ball hit me right in the face," said Toomay. He added that he respected Hensley's decision to schedule matches against talented teams such as Eastern, and look past the racial segregation.

According to Hensley, five to six Atlantic Coast Conference coaches would attend Edison games, trying to recruit Toomay on basketball scholarships. In the end, Toomay decided on Southeastern Conference's Vanderbilt, where he went on a split football and basketball scholarship. He played both sports his freshman year at Vanderbilt, but then had to choose at the end of the year which one he would commit to.

AT VANDERBILT BASKETBALL was a different game, according to Toomay. While at Edison he could play the role of a big man at 6-foot-5. In college he could not, as most guards were close to that size. He said he did not move like a guard, but like a big man, and therefore football was a better choice for him.
Competing in the SEC, Vanderbilt was a private university of 5,000 students playing against the likes of the University of Kentucky and the University of Alabama. Being a private university, every student had to go through a rigorous academic program.

However, Vanderbilt held its own in football. Toomay said his best year was his junior year, when the team went 5-4-1 and beat Alabama. He said it was a tumultuous time to be a college student in the South, as race relations were taking a turning point, exemplified by his friend Perry Wallace. Wallace pioneered the presence of black varsity athletes in SEC schools, enrolling at Vanderbilt on a basketball scholarship.

Coming out of college, Toomay was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys in the sixth round of the NFL Draft. He said he was tall and fast, but questions were asked whether he could gain enough weight to play as a defensive end. "I was at about 220, and needed to be 250, and I did the work and got a few breaks," said Toomay. From 1970 to 1974, Toomay played with the Dallas Cowboys under coach Tom Landry. During his five years there, the Cowboys went to two Super Bowls, losing 16-13 to the Baltimore Colts in January of 1971, and winning 24-3 over Miami the following year.

After five years with the Cowboys, Toomay went to Buffalo in 1975. After only a year in Buffalo, he was snatched by an NFL expansion team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The Bucs went 0-14 in their inaugural season. "That was a memorable year," said Toomay. "I played every down. [The defense] was out there 90 plays a game, it was like playing two seasons in one." Toomay added that most weeks the defensive players could not recover well enough from Sunday to Sunday, because their bodies would be beaten from the previous week's game.

AFTER A YEAR IN TAMPA BAY, Toomay found his way back to the top of the NFL. In 1977 he was picked up by the defending Super Bowl champions, the Oakland Raiders. "That was the highlight of my career," said Toomay. "I played the best ball I ever played for John Madden. He was the kind of coach I had been looking for since high school." Toomay said that it was not only Madden's coaching that made his time with the Raiders such a highlight, but also the characters of his teammates.

The coaches and the administrators who remember Toomay from his high school days say they are not surprised by the level of success he achieved in his NFL career. The former Edison director of student activities, Bob Carson, said he remembered Toomay as a great athlete who posted great academic scores as well. "I am not surprised at all with his NFL success. He was a great talent and a very committed athlete," said Carson. Hensley echoed Carson's words: "I wasn't surprised to see him in the NFL because of the way Pat does things. The Cowboys had a set of physical tests and he passed every one of them. He played longer and better than I thought he would."

Toomay lives in New Mexico and occasionally works on sports writing projects. He has published two books, one of them titled On Any Given Sunday. The title was later used for an Oliver Stone movie in which Toomay plays a small part. He has taken an interest in New Mexico's abundance of Native American culture.

[Angry Pope]

Here is another Randy Moss highlight video....

Hit it here.... (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Oaww_T0_f1k)

[Angry Pope]

Since a lot of you weren't here when most of these were posted...bump.

[R4Life]

Marcus Allen is creepy

July 24, 2007 -- KIMBERLY Williams, the June 2007 Penthouse Pet, has never met football legend Marcus Allen - and she wants to keep it that way. After talking on the phone for a few weeks, "he seemed like a really nice guy. But . . . I quickly found out that this is not a guy I want to know," the pin-up told Steppin' Out magazine's Chauncé Hayden. Kimberly was creeped out that Allen is a regular at the Playboy Mansion, and that his MySpace page is filled with girlfriends thanking him for "lunch." "So I started to pull away from him just to protect myself. But he calls me over 15 times a day! . . . He started to send me these terrible text messages. 'Where the hell are you, Kimberly!' . . . It's really scary . . . Things got really bad after I did the Howard Stern show. He got very upset that I got nude on the show. Hello! I'm a Penthouse Pet . . . I told him he needed to calm down . . . But he got even angrier." Allen's lawyer, Larry Stein, told Page Six: "It's the other way around. She's the one pursuing him. She started sending him pictures of herself with no clothes on. She's trying to get publicity."

[CrossBones]

Hey that's "creepy"...

I think Allen hung around with OJ too much. Hopefully that creepy shit didn't rub off on him but wow it seems maybe it did.

**********************

Dateline Los Angeles

Former NFL player Marcus Allen was found in his driveway playing with a bloody glove assumed to belong to Playmate Kimerbely Williams.

LAPD is investigating the bizarre incident. :eek: