Saturday, October 9, 2010

Al Davis......Please Step Down

The Oakland Raiders are the perennial laughing stocks of the NFL. Year after year, over the last decade they have done nothing but be inept in any situation the job of running a franchise has to offer. Of coarse this all stems from one man, Al Davis.

Davis bought the Raiders 3 years into their existance. He led this one time great franchise from the AFL to the glory days of the NFL winning 3 Super Bowls. There is no question that he ranks amongst the great owners in any sport in terms of wanting to win. In fact Davis even coined the slogan "just win baby". The Raiders have thirteen former players that have been enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In fact, the Raiders had only 7 losing seasons from 1963 until 2002. That's incredible. We can go on all day with his list of achievements with the Raiders, including the mystique he has brought upon the franchise. Albeit maybe not the positive mystique you would like, but we're talking about the Raiders here.

It's beyond me how this situation hasn't gardnered more attention. He cannot even get a qualified head coach for his team. Instead he has resorted to a linebackers coach in Tom Cable. If thats not bad enough, Davis has gone through a total of 6 head coaches this past decade. Yes, I said six! That's amazing seeing that the Raiders have had a total of 11 head coaches previous to Jon Grueden. Since 2003 the Raiders have a record of 29-83.

I would argue that all of these great achievements the Raiders have done in the past, have been trumped by the incompetance this organization has been apart of since their last Super Bowl win in 1983-84. Davis has repeatedtly sued the NFL along with his own players. From moving the team back and forth from Oakland to LA, his public fueds with Hall of Famer Marcus Allen to the most recent Jamarcus Russell debacle. It doesn't stop there neither. Run ins with head Coaches from Mike Shannahan to firing Art Shell (admitted it was a mistake) to Jon Grueden, which probably costed him a Super Bowl or two. If that's not enough he had another feud with Lane Kiffin, whom he hired for a good 5 minutes on the job without any previous head coaching experience.

Since 1983-84, Oaklands last Super Bowl win, they have recorded 9 seasons above .500. Nine in the last 26 years! Shall we recap this? From 1970(when they emerged with the NFL) to 1984 (there last Super Bowl win) a span of 14 years the Raiders won 3 Super Bowls, and recorded just 1 losing season. That losing season was a 7-9 mark in 1981. Raider nation certainly would take that record now a days faster then a Paris Hilton prison sentence. Let's not forget they also made 5 AFC championship games. Oakland also was the first team to win the Super Bowl while being a wild card team.

Fourteen years of excellence compared to the last 26 years of mediocrity at best. My question is this. With everything Davis has endured the last 26 years, why not step down now with the chance to still repair your once great repuation as a winning owner? I realize no owner of anything should be told when it's time to step aside, but Davis has went from great owner to the butt of all jokes. To be honest it's probably too late for Davis to repair his image of a great owner, but why not admit you made mistakes in the past, and you realize its been time to step aside, but your compeititve nature has kept you sucked in all of these years. Or create a new slogan for your franchise "just lose baby."

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