Post by TheShadow on Dec 24, 2005 21:25:46 GMT -5
www.raidernews.com/article.php?story=20051115065033129
By OakieRob
This week’s offering began as the obligatory analysis and conjecture on what is needed to right the Raiders’ ship. The subject matter changed, though, when three different associates and/or relatives of mine asked me basically the same question the Monday after the Chiefs loss. All three, a Chiefs, Broncos, and Dolphins fan, respectively, asked something to the affect, “What the (insert expletive) has happened to your Raiders? They used to always have a good team”. What follows is one long-time fan’s attempt to answer that question; without the usual bad coaching hires, poor drafts, disastrous free agent deals, etc.
Raider fans have conceived and perpetuated a variety of conspiracy theories over the years. There’s Rozelle and the blocking of the deal that would have brought John Elway to the East Bay. Then there’s Kraft and Bowen attempting to sabotage the move back to Oakland. And last, but not least, the ongoing ‘throw the flag only after the outcome of the play is determined’ fiasco. The trouble is, there is significant empirical evidence to support one or more of these theories.
All of these conspiracies, or any other aforementioned ‘Black Helicopter’ story, however, pale in comparison to what may have been the ultimate two-part anti-Raiders conspiracy: Free agency and the salary cap.
In days of old, a significant representation of players employed by the other NFL teams, either publicly or covertly, wanted to be an Oakland Raider. The reasons for this are widely understood by all of us who are old time Raider fans, and are the stuff of lore. It’s but one of the myriad things that has made us the most loyal, supportive, and outspoken fan base in the history of American team sports. The slogans are universally recognized, and their place in Raider nostalgia is legend. Other teams’ players wanted to play for Al Davis because, first and foremost, he was a ‘football guy’; he understood the players and created an atmosphere he knew they could thrive in. When Al first assumed the helm, most players weren’t paid enough to satisfy their ex-cheerleader wives’ lifestyle expectations without taking a job during the off-season. These men played for the love of the game, and if they were expected to suffer the inherent brutalities of the sport itself, they may as well do it where, and for whom, it was truly appreciated. Not only did Mr. Davis create an atmosphere for success, he exhibited a level of commitment and loyalty to his players, both present and past, extremely rare among pro sports executives. The concept that grown men should be left to their own devices as long as they prepared well and played hard on Sundays was considered, inexplicably, a novel one.
History boldly declared Mr. Davis’ ‘novel’ philosophies an unqualified success. For more than a quarter century, his teams won a higher percentage of games than any other organization in the history of professional team sports. The advent of ‘Monday Night Football’ and the aggressive, exciting, and often dramatic style of the Raiders spawned a whole new generation of Raider faithful; not only in this country, but across the globe. Oakland Raider fan clubs were springing up all over Western Europe as the newly enthralled gathered in the wee hours of the morning to cheer for the Silver & Black Attack. As much as anything else, the way Mr. Davis built his teams endeared him to ‘the common masses’. Over the years, many productive players who had been ‘put out to pasture’ by other teams found a home in Oakland. By telling these players that someone still believed in them, the Raiders became the ‘blue collar’ favorite of the ‘everyman’. Whenever a productive veteran player was pushed out the door by a shiny new draft pick, they all knew that Al was the one guy who would give them a chance to prove the doubters wrong. Year after year, team after team, the Raiders featured at least a handful of veteran players whose former teams thought they were washed up. To Raider fans’ delight, many of them remained highly productive for more than just a couple of seasons. Many of them also, eventually, helped the Raiders win championships. By 1984, the Raiders had won three Super Bowls in eight seasons, with the interval shrinking between each triumph. If not for the inability to merely recognize a fumble (Lytle, 1977), or to simply field a punt (Seale x 2, 1985), the opportunities to compete for five world championships in ten seasons were imminent.
What you’ve just read over these past couple of paragraphs is one long-time Raiders fan’s humble attempt to define and convey what others have come to know as ‘The Raider Mystique’, well, half of it anyway. The other half was tangible, unadulterated, pure intimidation. In those days, the Raiders’ extraordinarily physical style of play, on both sides of the ball, left opposing teams so banged up that their available personnel were depleted significantly for the game following. This translated into the likely expectation of two losses whenever opponents saw the Raiders on their schedule. Every franchise in pro football knew that anything less than their very best gave them no chance, and that merely accepting the challenge carried a high price indeed. To carry this thread even a bit further, I would submit for your consideration that all of these things served to create a sense of pride and belonging unique to the Raider player. Others, I’m certain, will argue that the same could be said for any player, from any team, fortunate enough to achieve long-term success with the same organization. I still believe, however, that when all was said and done, it was just ‘different’; that more so than for any other team, it really MEANT SOMETHING to be a Raider. On the other hand, maybe I’m only, once again, waxing myopic.
As pro football gained an ever-increasing popularity, the commensurate financial rewards rightfully followed. The more successful franchises had the resources to build quality depth, which, in turn, created the advantage of maneuverability. Deeper teams could use this flexibility to replace aging veterans through trades, or package players and/or draft picks to position themselves in the draft to choose the ‘impact’ player they really wanted. Success, it seems, begets success. There was, predictably, a great wailing and gnashing of teeth among those not able to keep pace. The scourge of capitalism run amuck (gasp) was threatening, in their small pathetic minds, to create a permanent ‘underclass’ among the league’s smaller market teams and, to a much greater extent, its more poorly run franchises. Major League Baseball and the NBA used similar whinings to eventually create their own versions of the cap.
One of the main reasons the NFL has thrived so magnificently over the past four-plus decades is because of smart people in the right places making good decisions. The deals struck in the infancy of pro football’s alliance with a burgeoning television industry were designed, obviously, to maximize exposure and grow the audience. By spreading the TV money around equally amongst all the franchises, every team, ownership, and community was essentially guaranteed financial stability. Later on, emerging technologies gave the television networks the ability to broadcast every away game for every team in their own respective home markets, virtually guaranteeing a captive audience in the millions each and every Sunday. As the game’s popularity and television audience grew almost exponentially, the advertising dollars paid to the networks and the fees paid by them to the National Football League for broadcasting rights followed suit. It was utopian. The money poured in, and everybody was ridin’ that gravy train. Then something unforeseen altered the dynamic forever.
A couple of ‘struggling’ franchises decided to move their teams to markets where they believed greener pastures existed; for no other reason than to expand the bottom line. This, coupled with what a certain media mogul was doing in Atlanta with his cable network and baseball team, and what a ship-building magnate was beginning in New York with his own storied pro sports franchise, sparked yet another brilliant idea in the mind of one Alvin Davis. Move your already popular and successful franchise into the second largest media market in the country, set up a similar scenario to market and sell your already-in-demand product, and secure the opportunity to build on and perpetuate an established, dominant place within your industry. It wasn’t just football, it was the business of winning at football; and it was nothing short of pure genius. Of course, the League took exception to what Mr. Davis was doing. Although other owners had been granted the right to move their teams, seemingly wherever they saw fit, Al’s brilliant move was characterized as a ‘threat to the stability of the league’. In short order, the NFL set out to block the move. Not surprisingly, Al moved aggressively to file suit. What the NFL didn’t know was that, at least in Mr. Davis’ mind, their adversary already had pocket aces. Al, and his team of barristers, were holding the NFL’s own history of allowing franchise relocations and Federal Anti Trust precedents as the ultimate hole cards. When the courts flopped the Raiders aces full of kings, and trebled the damages according to anti-trust statute, the NFL was forced to hand over millions with which Al could ‘raid’ opposing rosters for even more veteran talent. Clearly, something had to be done. Al Davis and his Raiders would never be allowed to become pro football’s evil twin to George Steinbrenner and the New York Yankees. Could anyone seriously doubt that, if the opportunity existed, Al Davis would gleefully pay a ‘luxury tax’ for the ability to bust the cap and build the team he really wants?
Obviously, free agency existed long before the salary cap. The confluence of the two, however, and subsequent collective bargaining agreements which delineated how the two interacted, virtually assured Pete Rozelle’s horribly misguided dream for the National Football League. The melding of these separate yet equally malignant instruments required that less attention be paid to the product on the field and more to be paid, in every imaginable way, to the counting of beans. When the varying levels of free agency were tied to compensation mandates, all forms and fashions of macro-economic chaos theory were elevated as well. Instead of those who worked smarter and harder gaining the advantages due their efforts, to establish teams and organizations for long-term success, every team was diminished overall. The constant reshuffling of the deck meant that, sure, any team can choose to mortgage their future for a shot at the Lombardi, but no team would ever again be allowed to build a dominant, lasting force in today’s National Football League. We all know it, my brethren. The current run by the Patriots is an aberration. Give credit where it is due. Robert Kraft has accomplished what no one thought possible in today’s ‘show me the money’ pro sports atmosphere. He built an organization that is so attractive to the players that they are willing to play for less than their full market value just to be a part of it. That being the case, however, one of the most glaring detriments brought about as a by-product of the cap is rearing its ugly head in New England as we speak; the inability of any team to build the quality depth necessary to overcome injuries at key positions.
Curt Flood started the ball rolling. Inferior executives high atop floundering NFL franchises sealed the deal. By creating a system that punished excellence and rewarded mediocrity, the powers that be in the National Football League took away a unique advantage only the Raiders enjoyed. By depriving us of the laboriously cultivated and inextricably conjoined components that had formed and fed the legacy of our fabled ‘mystique’, the NFL, effectively, stripped us of our one, true, identity.
Seriously, to make a case that all these machinations were set in motion specifically to stem the tide of a momentum-gathering Raider juggernaut is probably a bit far-fetched, even for those perched precariously on the outer edges of the Raider Nation’s lunatic fringe. Yet, when the end results are surveyed, they may as well have been. No other organization, in this writer’s humble opinion, could claim to have been damaged as much by them.