Oakland Raiders
Network Associates Coliseum (1999–2004)
The Oakland Raiders are a professional American football team based in the city of Oakland, California. They currently play in the Western Division of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL).
The Raiders began play in 1960 as the eighth charter member of the American Football League (AFL), where they won one championship and three division titles. The team joined the NFL in 1970 as part of the AFL-NFL Merger.
Since joining the NFL, the Raiders have won twelve division titles and three Super Bowls (XI, XV, XVIII), and have appeared in two other Super Bowls. The team has thirteen enshrinees in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
During their first three seasons, the Raiders struggled both on and off the field.
In 1963, Al Davis was brought to the team as head coach and general manager. Davis immediately turned the Raiders into winners, and from 1963 until 2002 the team had only seven losing seasons.
Upon his return to Oakland in 1966, he became a managing partner of the franchise.
After a few years of legal battles, Davis moved the team from Oakland to Los Angeles, California in 1982. While in Los Angeles, the Raiders won their third Super Bowl, but made just two playoff appearances through the rest of the 1980s.
In 2000, head coach Jon Gruden led Oakland to a 12-4 season and their first division title since 1990 which was the first of a 3 year winning steak for the Raiders in the AFC West Division the following two seasons, the first two would belong to Gruden. In 2000, head coach Jon Gruden led the Raiders to the AFC Championship Game where they fell in Oakland to the Baltimore Ravens 16-3.
In 2001, they won their second AFC West Division Title and went 10-6 but fell in the Divisional Round to the New England Patriots in the famous but controversial "Tuck Rule" game in the snow. In 2002, Under head coach Bill Callahan, Oakland faced Gruden's Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl XXXVII, where they lost a lopsided affair, 48-21.
The city had not asked for a team, there was no ownership group and there was no stadium in Oakland suitable for pro football (the closest stadiums were in Berkeley and San Francisco) and there was already a successful NFL franchise in the Bay Area: the San Francisco 49ers. However, the AFL owners selected Oakland after Los Angeles Chargers owner Barron Hilton threatened to forfeit his franchise unless a second team was placed on the West Coast. Accordingly, the city of Oakland was awarded the eighth AFL franchise on January 30, 1960, and the team inherited the Minneapolis club's draft picks.
Upon receiving the franchise, Oakland civic leaders found a number of businesspeople willing to invest in the new team.
A limited partnership was formed to own the team headed by managing general partner Y. Charles (Chet) Soda, a local real estate developer, and included general partners Ed McGah, Robert Osborne, F.
A "name the team" contest was held by a local newspaper, and the winner was the Oakland Señors. After a few weeks of being the butt of local jokes the fledgling team (and its owners) changed the team's name to the Oakland Raiders, which had finished third in the naming contest.
The now-familiar team emblem of a pirate (or "raider") wearing a football helmet was created, reportedly a rendition of actor Randolph Scott.
When the University of California, Berkeley refused to let the Raiders play home games at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, they chose Kezar Stadium in San Francisco as their home field. The team's first regular season home game was played on September 11, 1960, a 37-22 loss to the Houston Oilers. Raiders games were broadcast locally on KNBC (680 AM; the station later became KNBR), with Wilson K.
(Bud) Foster handling play-by-play and Mel Venter providing color analysis.
The Raiders were allowed to move to Candlestick Park for the final three home games of the 1960 season after gaining the approval of San Francisco's Recreation and Park Commission, marking the first time that professional football would be played at the new stadium. The change of venue failed to attract larger crowds for the Raiders, with announced attendance of 12,061 (vs. Soon after, Valley and McGah purchased Osborne's interest, with Valley named as the managing general partner.
Valley threatened to move the Raiders out of the area unless a stadium was built in Oakland, but in 1962 the Raiders moved into 18,000-seat Frank Youell Field (later expanded to 22,000 seats), their first home in Oakland. It was a temporary home for the team while the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum was under construction. At 33, he was the youngest person in professional football history to hold the positions. Davis immediately changed the team colors to silver and black, and began to implement what he termed the "vertical game," an aggressive offensive strategy based on the West Coast offense developed by Chargers head coach Sid Gillman. Under Davis the Raiders improved to 10-4, and he was named the AFL's Coach of the Year in 1963.
With the merger, the position of commissioner was no longer needed, and Davis entered into discussions with Valley about returning to the Raiders. In 1970, the AFL-NFL merger took place and the Raiders joined the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the newly merged NFL.
In 1969, John Madden became the team's sixth head coach, and under him the Raiders became one of the most successful franchises in the NFL, winning six division titles during the 1970s.
The achievement was marred somewhat by three consecutive losses in AFC Championships from 1973 to 1975, two against the Pittsburgh Steelers. In January 1976, Valley sold his interest in the team, and Davis — who now owned only 25 percent of the Raiders — was firmly in charge.
After ten consecutive winning seasons and one Super Bowl championship, Madden left the Raiders (and coaching) in 1979 to pursue a career as a television football commentator.
Plunkett led Oakland to an 11-5 record and a wild card berth. With the victory, the Raiders became the first ever wild card team to win a Super Bowl.
Move to Los Angeles (1982–1994)
Prior to the 1980 season, Al Davis attempted unsuccessfully to have improvements made to Oakland Coliseum, specifically the addition of luxury boxes.
The next two seasons, the Raiders qualified for the playoffs but lost in the wild card round and the divisional round, respectively. With the hiring, Shell became the first African American head coach in the modern NFL era. In 1990, Shell led Los Angeles to a 12-4 record and an appearance in the AFC Championship, where they lost a lopsided affair to the Buffalo Bills, 51-3.
The team's fortunes faded after the loss.
This period was marked by the career-ending injury of two-sport athlete Bo Jackson in 1990, the failure of troubled quarterback Todd Marinovich, the acrimonious departure of Marcus Allen in 1993, and the retirement of Hall of Fame defensive end Howie Long after the 1993 season. The exact source of the friction is unknown, but a contract dispute led Davis to refer to Allen as "a cancer on the team." By the late 1980s, injuries began to reduce Allen's role in the offense.
This role was reduced further in 1987, when the Raiders drafted Bo Jackson—even though he originally decided to not play professional football in 1986 (when drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the first round). By 1990, Allen had dropped to fourth on the team's depth chart, leading to resentment on the part of his teammates. The move was greeted with much fanfare, and under new head coach Mike White the 1995 season started off well for the team.
Oakland finished 12-4 in the 2000 season, the team's most successful in a decade. The recovery would have led to a Raiders victory; however, the play was reviewed and determined to be an incomplete pass (it was ruled that Brady had pump faked and had not yet "tucked" the ball into his body, which, by rule, cannot result in a fumble - though this explanation was not given on the field, but after the NFL season had ended).
Some Tampa Bay players claimed that Gruden had given them so much information on Oakland's offense, they knew exactly what plays were being called.
Callahan's second season as head coach was considerably less successful. After a 4-12 season and a second consecutive last place finish, Turner was fired as head coach.
Full control of the team will be assumed by Davis's wife, Carol, upon his death.
Financial operations
Hawaiian Airlines is the official carrier for the Raiders. This Hawaiian Boeing 767 wears the Raiders logo on its fuselage.
According to a 2006 report released by Forbes Magazine, the Raiders' overall team value of US $736 million ranks 28th out of 32 NFL teams. The team ranked in the bottom three in league attendance from 2003–2005, and failed to sell out a majority of their home games.
As a result, fewer than 31,000 PSLs were sold for a stadium that holds twice that amount. It consists of silver helmets, silver pants, and either black or white jerseys.
However, in 1971 the team again displayed black numerals and have stayed that way ever since.(with the exception of the 1994-95 season where they donned the 1963 helmets with the 1970 silver away numbers.)
The Raiders are one of only two NFL teams (Seattle Seahawks being the other) to have never worn their white jerseys at home.
Rivals
Further information: Chiefs-Raiders rivalry
The Oakland Raiders have four primary rivals: their divisional rivals (Denver Broncos, Kansas City Chiefs, and San Diego Chargers) and their geographic rival, the San Francisco 49ers. The last being won by the Patriots when the two teams opened the 2005 season in Gillette Stadium, with the score 30-20 in the Patriots favor.
The New York Jets began a strong rivalry with the Raiders in the AFL during the 1960s that continued through much of the 1970s, fueled in part by Raider Ike Lassiter breaking star quarterback Joe Namath's jaw during a 1967 game (though Ben Davidson wrongly got the blame), the famous Heidi Game during the 1968 season, and the Raiders' bitter loss to the Jets in the AFL Championship later that season.
Tom Hanks, who wrote and directed the film, is a Raiders fan.
An episode of the FOX television series Sliders ("The Prince of Wails") featured an alternate universe where the British won the American Revolutionary War, and although San Francisco was still a large city, Oakland was still an undeveloped, forested area (with the same geographical name).