Tarnished icon: Is Al Davis at the center of the Oakland Raiders' crisis?

photo by Patrick A. Patterson/tfdssports.com

There are few names in sports that elicit a passionate visceral response, but the name Al Davis has a nearly universal effect. He is the man who built the Oakland Raiders into a powerhouse, but he has also been the captain of the ship that has gone 19-62 since Super Bowl XXXVII. 

To Al’s supporters, he is the rogue NFL owner who has guided the Raiders though their glorious history. He is the one who has successfully battled the league to get what he wants. When viewed from this light, Al is the modern anti-hero. Al took on all who would deny him the greatness he earned as the chief of the Raiders.

To Al’s detractors, he is the dictator who has run the Raiders into the ground the last several years because of his unwillingness to compromise. He is seen as a senile old fool who has lost his senses and is stuck in a 1970’s time warp. He is the butt of jokes because of his battles with the league.

Al Davis is the sole power of the Oakland Raiders. Every move the Raiders make for both the good and bad ultimately is laid at his feet, as he runs the Raiders as if the team was his own Banana Republic. In fact, it is his very presence that has led to the recent explosive dueling press confrences from Lane Kiffin and Rob Ryan.

The Raider Nation has begun to turn on their once beloved patriarch, with the double-digit loss seasons, and the Raiders seemingly unable to make even modest strides back towards respectability let alone contention.

Like Callahan before him, Kiffin wanted to make sweeping changes after his first season, but was denied and told to go play in the film room and leave the football decisions to someone who knows better.  If Callahan had gotten his way, the Raiders’ 2003 team would’ve consisted of players of the average age of this team, but instead he was forced to go into the season with a team that had an average age of the occupants of an old folks home.

Bill Callahan has long been known as the coach who called the Raiders the "dumbest team in America" and engineering the Raiders' Super Bowl meltdown. Those are two strikes against him, but the question becomes "what if Callahan had been able to get his way?" The Raiders of the early 2000s were, as Rob Calonge wrote in the quote above, were a team of players who were all holding on at the ends of their careers. They had closed out their window with the Super Bowl loss, and were a team in need of rebuilding. Rather than allow the team to rebuild, Davis brought in more veterans to get one more push. The 2003 team ended 4-12, but considering the spate of injuries that team faced it is understandable and should have led to a youth movement. It didn't.

Davis fired Callahan and replaced him with Norv Turner. Turner had already shown in Washington that he was not the type of coach who was going to get a team to win big. In fact, Norv couldn't win much at all in Oakland managing a 9-23 record in two years.

After two years he replaced Norv Turner with Art Shell. Shell has been vilified throughout the Raider Nation for turning in a 2-14 record that season. Shell could have done a lot of things better, but he was also put behind the 8-ball from the beginning. He wasn't brought in until February and then got no support from above when he got into a battle with wide receiver Jerry Porter. Near the end of his one year tenure he gave a cryptic interview where he spoke about a "fox in the henhouse." The speculation about that fox centered around Mike Lombardi, but when looked at from the long view, there could be much more to it. 

Al Davis reached into the college ranks to hire the unproven Lane Kiffin, saying that Kiffin reminded him of a younger version of himself. Instead of turning things around, once again the Raiders turned in a double digit loss season. Despite the record, the Raiders finally looked like a team that had signs of life. Instead of giving Kiffin a chance to continue on what he had begun to build all hell broke loose in Alameda with rumors flying about Davis wanting to fire Kiffin and Kiffin refusing telling Davis to fire him.

Davis backed up the Brink's truck in the offseason to reload the team with talent, but the early indications are that it was not money well spent. In fact, the centerpiece of his shopping spree, Javon Walker, was found beaten in a Las Veags alley and tried to retire during training camp. He missed the first game and is questionable for the second game. Davis also traded for defensive back DeAngelo Hall who was putrid in the opening game. It would seem that Warren Sapp was on to something:

“As far as where the Raiders are going, they have unrealistic ideas about what their people can do,” Sapp said on a conference call to promote the reincarnation of “Inside the NFL” that premieres tonight on Showtime.

“That was the experience I had in the four years I was there. They asked people to do stuff they were physically impossible of doing.

“They asked a guy who hadn’t coached for 12 years to coach,”

There is only one person who calls the shots when it comes to personnel on the Oakland Raiders and that is Al Davis. Al Davis, member of the pro football Hall of Fame. Al Davis who took over a fledgling football team and turned them into a powerhouse. Al Davis, icon of the NFL, seems to have lost his touch. If this drama continues he should face scrutiny from the league, as it seems that something is rotten in Alameda. It appears that it may be time for Al Davis to retire and let a fresh mind run the day-to-day operations of the team.