Post by TheShadow on Feb 19, 2006 10:55:26 GMT -5
nl.newsbank.com/
Published on December 30, 1995
© 1995- The Press Democrat
BYLINE: Brian Murphy
Staff Writer
It started as a rumor one June day, when former Raiders coach John Madden said in a daily radio interview that his old boss, Al Davis, was coming back to Oakland. For real. No joke.
Raiders fans -- and Raiders haters- who had been through this tease before were skeptical at first, but the rumor swelled into a tidal wave within 24 hours. And 48 hours after Madden first spilled the beans, the Oakland City Council approved a deal with the Prince of Darkness and the unreal became most real.
The Raiders were back in Oakland.
Driven out of L.A. by apathetic fans and a lack of luxury boxes, Big Al went back to the region that never stopped loving him, with a fat, lucrative deal from the city and hopes that the old Coliseum magic would resuscitate his underachieving club.
And for 10 weeks it appeared that way, as the Raiders raced to an 8-2 record. But a nearly inexplicable six-game losing streak revealed a glaring lack of leadership and character in the organization, and the homecoming ended on a sour note with a season-ending come-from-ahead loss to the hated Broncos and despised John Elway.
Still, the fact that after that game the Raiders trudged off the Oakland Coliseum turf was the big picture.
The Raiders did come back, and some people still can't believe it.