Raider Article....Ouch!!

[The Dad Fisherman]

Sorry for the Long Read....But its going to be painful to some.

Blame the Raiders' mess on Al Davis

By Paul Attner - SportingNews

He arrives at the Raiders' practice complex, frequently at night, after most everyone has left. His driver opens the door for him and starts the laborious process of getting Al Davis out of his car and into his office. The driver takes Davis' weakened legs and turns them toward the pavement, then pulls him up so he can put his hands on his walker. Then Davis moves through the dark, slowly, methodically, until he disappears behind the doors at the center of Raider Nation.

The man who once would show off his vigor at league meetings by having workout equipment delivered to his room has seen his body fail him these past few years, just as his franchise, the one he has controlled and manipulated for the past 43 seasons, likewise has deteriorated. The once proud and arrogant Raiders -- winners of three Super Bowls, the self-proclaimed "Team of the Decades" -- now are contenders for another title: worst franchise in pro sports.

And at the center of everything wrong about the team is majority owner Davis, at 77 increasingly frail yet still firmly in charge of every aspect of the operation, unwilling to step aside, unwilling or unable to move out of the past and deal with today's NFL.

Davis and the Raiders exist in a world unlike any in the league. He surely must have been angered by this season and its 2-14 ugliness. Yet until he fired coach Art Shell on January 4, the most visible sign of displeasure from Davis over the past few months came after a perceived slight to his team's legacy. NFL Network ranked the top 20 all-time Super Bowl winners; it placed the Raiders' 1983 champions 20th. Davis was outraged; the organization sent out e-mails to national media questioning how the network could not rate the team as perhaps the best ever.

That legacy is all Davis has left, and he guards it with remarkable zeal. Everything about the Raiders is their past, the titles, the Hall of Fame players. But the present? The joke around the NFL is that no one does losing better than the Raiders. Even in the best of times, it is a dysfunctional organization. But the crushing pressure generated by losing this season created an ongoing soap opera of laughable proportions. One star receiver was suspended for complaining about a practice, another admitted he dropped passes because he didn't care, the head coach publicly accused a team personnel executive of undermining the organization to the media, the new quarterback wondered at one point, "What have I gotten into?"

The results on the field were truly embarrassing. The Raiders set franchise records for most losses and fewest points scored. In the Davis era, which began in 1963 when he became coach and general manager, they never had been shut out twice at home nor had they lost nine straight games; both happened this season. They finished last in the league in points (10.5 per game), offense (246.2 yards per game), sacks allowed (72), turnovers (46) and takeaway/giveaway differential (minus-23). How bad is bad? The Raiders lost to Houston despite holding the Texans to minus-5 yards passing. They had nary a touchdown in their last three games; LaDainian Tomlinson singlehandledly scored 15 more touchdowns than the Raiders this season.

But this was not an anomaly. Since losing Super Bowl 37 after the 2002 season, their 15-49 record is the worst in the NFL, outdoing even the pathetic Lions'. Over the past 12 years, Oakland has had three winning seasons, two while Jon Gruden was coach. Even more telling: The Raiders have not won a Super Bowl in 23 years and have played for the NFL title just once in that span. But until now, they never had suffered four consecutive losing seasons. Until now, they never had gone two years without a division win.

If Gruden had stayed, this current mess might not be happening. But he couldn't coexist with Davis, who disliked seeing his coach receive much of the credit for the team's success. Nor would Gruden abide by Davis' constant interference. Gruden welcomed a trade after the 2001 season that landed him in Tampa; he promptly coached the Bucs to a win over the Raiders in Super Bowl 37. In the five years since Gruden's departure, Davis has gone through three head coaches.

"Al had the coach he needed in Gruden," one NFL team official says. "If they had been able to work together, none of what you see now would have happened. But Al doesn't want anyone else to be in the spotlight but him. When people began saying Gruden was the reason the Raiders were good, it was only a matter of time before he was gone."

Once, coaching or playing for the Raiders was a gem on a resume. John Madden won a Super Bowl and is in the Hall of Fame. Tom Flores won two rings and might get in one day. Now, no proven head coach will work for Davis. And most high-profile candidates won't interview. After the 2005 season, the Raiders even were turned down by a college coach, Louisville's Bobby Petrino, who recently took over the Falcons. Shell's hiring a year ago was a desperate move; he was the loyal Raider who had been fired once, in 1994, by Oakland because he no longer met Davis' expectations. Davis still can sign some big-name free agents -- LaMont Jordan being the prime example -- if the money is right. But it's no longer an honor to be in a Raiders uniform.

The Raiders remain undaunted. Chief executive Amy Trask says that any view of them should embrace a bigger picture, that during this decade they've been to two AFC title games and won three AFC West championships, more than any division rival. "It's important that when you look at 2006, you look at it in the perspective of the last seven years," Trask says. "It is really only fair to look at it in that context. We've always been able to regain success. We can turn this around, and we will turn it around."

What does Davis think? The Raiders did not make him available for an interview.

Still, the common thread through all of this -- the reign of success, the decay into ineptness -- is Davis. Figuring out how the Raiders got into this present state of disrepair starts with him.

There is no doubting that Davis is one of the great football men in NFL history. He already is in the Hall of Fame, and his immense intelligence and keen football instincts built the Raiders into one of the most successful, popular sports franchises ever. "Al is the last of a breed," says Ron Wolf, the former Packers general manager who worked 24 years with the Raiders and Davis. "He is brilliant and still very, very sharp. He knows every part of the franchise -- coaching, personnel, business. He was great in every area. But the game has changed so much -- it's so big now, it just is different from what it once was."

But Davis is not different. He continues to be the Raiders' personnel chief. He no longer attends practices, but he reviews practice tape. He has last say on lineup changes, on roster decisions, on hiring assistant coaches, on both the final setup of the draft board and players who are selected. He studies tapes of opponents and has significant input into game plans and schemes.

In his last public appearance, in the locker room December 17 after a loss to the Rams, Davis alluded to the strain of his workload. "(Practice tape) takes so goddamn long to go through," he lamented. "It takes three hours to go through offense, defense, special teams, looking at every player and watching what they're doing tactically, strategy and all."

As is his habit, he rambled from subject to subject. At one point, he said, "What I say to you is: five decades, five Super Bowls, four head coaches, four different quarterbacks." And: "I want to win. Obviously in life, I like certain things. I like beautiful women more than unbeautiful women. I'm not in any way demeaning the unbeautiful women. I want to win, and I will win, and we will win for the Raiders, and we'll get this thing straightened out."

He wears all white or all black. That hasn't changed, either; on this day, white was the choice. As he talked, he leaned on his walker, his face pasty-white and hollow, his eyes reddened, his left leg in a brace, both legs betraying him with every step. "I want to get this (leg) thing well -- it's tough," he admitted. "No one seems to have an answer." Davis won't say what is wrong; evidently it is a nerve problem that has defied treatment and cure.

Once, when he was younger, he was good enough to handle all of his multiple tasks at a superior level. But that was before the era of salary caps and free agents, before rules changes hindered his ability to run players in and out, to pay them what he wanted, to cut them at will. His best players were Raiders for life; Madden and Flores were his only coaches for 19 consecutive seasons.

Now, things are different. "He has lost his fastball," says one NFL personnel man. "He used to be the best personnel guy in the league. Not anymore. Look at the Raiders' drafts. He still is picking defensive backs early; it's a joke. He is living in the past. The game and the kids have changed so much. It's not like when you had kids who wanted to play, who weren't overpaid, who worked hard. One or two bad guys can ruin it all. He is not willing to change how he does anything. He is going down with what he knows."

He never cared about character. If he had, those old Raiders teams, with John Matuszak and the rest, would not have been nearly as fun to watch. But now you get stuck with someone like Randy Moss and his large cap number and the whole roster is affected. "Maybe I need to pay more attention to character," he has told folks in the league.

He is difficult to work for, a demanding second-guesser who encourages paranoia, bickering and insecurity within the building. Too many of those employees are sycophants, loyalists whose duty is to agree with him and reinforce the Raiders' legacy and his role in creating it. The Raiders always seem angry, defensive, wary of conspiracies.

This season, we briefly got a glimpse of the dysfunction. At a news conference in late November, Shell astonishingly called out a team employee, whom he did not name, and lambasted him for undermining the Raiders by criticizing offensive coordinator Tom Walsh, a close friend of Shell's, to national media. "There has been an attack on my (football) family," said Shell, and he referred to the employee as a "fox inside your chicken coop." Reporters immediately knew Shell was referring to senior personnel executive Mike Lombardi. Amazingly, nothing came of the episode; both Shell and Lombardi continued in their positions.

Whatever authority Oakland's head coach might have had in the past now has evaporated. In disputes between players and coaches, Davis inevitably favors the players, particularly the most talented ones. The players know this, and they view their head coach as powerless. During the 2005 season, for example, then-coach Norv Turner benched quarterback Kerry Collins and replaced him with Marques Tuiasosopo, a 2001 second-round choice who has been a bust. Tuiasosopo played miserably in that start, but after the game Turner said Tuiasosopo would continue to be No. 1. Three days later, Turner said Collins had regained his starting role. The coach had been overruled by Davis.

This year, receiver Alvis Whitted, blessed with great speed but second-rate skills, remained a starter even though Ronald Curry, who had returned from a 2005 injury, was a better player. Davis favors receivers who can stretch the field, which Curry can't do. Whitted kept his starting position for 13 games, until he was injured. Curry, despite uneven playing time, caught a team-leading 62 passes, 35 more than Whitted.

"What's sad is that Al is hiring head coaches he knows can't be successful," says one team executive. Says another personnel man: "They haven't adjusted to today's times and today's football and today's players. They're still trying to strong-arm people with their tactics. They still try and go by the old Raider mentality, where they shouldn't flex as much as just make better decisions with a little better judgment." But there's more. "Until they solve the quarterback situation, they won't get any better," says ESPN analyst Joe Theismann. "And they have to change their offensive philosophy. I remember when Magic Johnson tried to coach the Lakers. He lasted just a few games, he couldn't talk to the new generation, it didn't work. That's what happened to Art. You need someone running the offense who is up-to-date."

Since Super Bowl 37, the decline of the Raiders has been steady and stunning. Bill Callahan, who coached that squad after replacing Gruden, lasted one more year. Following a 4-12 season in which Callahan called his team the dumbest in America, Davis fired him and hired Turner, who had one playoff team in his seven years as Redskins coach.

At the end of his two-season tenure (9-23), Turner was haggard and jittery. The players had lost respect for him -- particularly Moss, who was obtained from the Vikings in 2005 to help restore the Raiders' vertical passing game. Moss wasn't happy, Collins deteriorated, and the Raiders finished 2005 with a six-game losing streak. Davis then turned to Shell, who vowed to restore the team's swagger and toughness. And his offense? "Run it and strike deep," he said. Back to the old Raider Way.

Instead, 2006 became the antithesis of everything Davis had created with the franchise. The defense finished an impressive third in the NFL. But on offense, it was horrid:

Shell clashed immediately with receiver Jerry Porter, who had 76 catches in 2005. Porter wanted to do his offseason training in Florida; Shell wanted him at the Oakland facility. Then Porter complained loudly about a lengthy October practice; Warren Sapp said he had heard "a lot worse." But Shell kicked out Porter and the Raiders suspended him for four games, a penalty cut in half after a compromise with the NFLPA. Yet, inexplicably, Oakland neither traded nor waived Porter. He was inactive most games and finished the season with just one reception.

The self-centered Moss was appointed offensive captain for the season, an awful decision. He became a barometer for all things wrong with the offense. On a radio show before the first game, he complained: "There's a lot of funny things going on in this organization. ... It's fishy around here, so actually we're walking on eggshells around here." In early October, he said: "I'm doing fine. I'm not even concerned with football right now. I'm just loving life." Asked if he was concerned about the team, he answered: "No, because it doesn't seem like nobody else is concerned, so why should I?" Asked about a trade, he said: "If it is good for this team for me to be traded, of course." In November, he attributed his numerous dropped passes to "a bad mood" affecting his concentration and focus, all stemming from his unhappiness with everything Raiders. He sat out the final three games with an ankle injury and finished with 42 catches.

Walsh was hired by Shell and Davis as offensive coordinator even though he had not been in the NFL since he was fired as part of Shell's 1994 staff. Walsh was running a bed and breakfast in Idaho when called back by the Raiders; the offense he installed was so basic and unimaginative that it became an embarrassment. Finally, before the 12th game, Shell demoted Walsh and handed over the offense to another assistant, John Shoop. Under Walsh, the Raiders averaged 12.0 points; under Shoop 7.2.

Davis dumped Collins after the 2005 season and brought in free agent Aaron Brooks, a former starter in New Orleans who was considered merely a quality backup by most of the league. Yet Davis liked Brooks' strong arm and hoped he could get the ball downfield to Moss and Porter. But Brooks, who struggled with injuries all season, instead demonstrated the same bad decision making and error-ridden play that had soured the Saints on him. He did not win a game as starter.
In December, he admitted wondering, "What have I gotten into?" The Raiders offense he had dreamed about? "I have my PlayStation for that," he said. The real Oakland offense? "I see a lack of motivation, enthusiasm, excitement and skill. Right now, we need a miracle to get something done offensively."

The Raiders traded receiver Doug Gabriel to the Patriots the week of the first game even though Porter was the one in Davis' doghouse. New England cut Gabriel in December. The Raiders claimed him off waivers.
Now the Raiders have the No. 1 pick in the draft. That last happened in 1962, pre-Davis, when they chose quarterback Roman Gabriel first in the AFL draft. But he never signed with them. The obvious choice this year would be a quarterback. But with so many needs, Oakland could opt to trade the selection for multiple choices and/or veteran players. Davis has drafted only three quarterbacks in the first round, and all three (Marc Wilson, Todd Marinovich and Eldridge #^&#^&#^&#^&ey) have been mediocre or worse. He seems better at finding retreads such as Jim Plunkett and Rich Gannon, who unexpectedly flourished as Raiders.

Davis' latest attempts to fix the offense have failed. His line, composed mostly of recent draft selections, is a mess; Jordan, a big-bucks free-agent running back, hasn't proved he is a top runner; Davis' best players, Moss and Porter, have created what teammate Jarrod Cooper called a circus; and none of the 16 offensive players taken in the past four drafts has become a star.

But Davis is entertaining no thoughts of stepping aside. "To the contrary," Trask says, "He is energized and eager to get started on the 2007 season." That may be the worst possible news for Raiders fans everywhere.

[BigFish]

Good read!

[Raider Ronnie]

Al Davis has been both the best and worst thing to happen to the Raiders!!!