Tony La Russa is a hall of famer and by all accounts, a smart guy. He lost some credibility when he got busted for DUI a few years back and couldn't recite the alphabets in order, but that's neither here nor there. I guess we can let a little DUI go when the resume is as impressive as La Russa's. He has been a very successful baseball lifer who is smart and unique with his strategies. He also does a lot of good things off the field like his work with animal rights groups. But yesterday's game 5 of the world series was a disaster for Tony. Good for him that he is a hall of famer. If the other manager, Ron Washington had been involved in this mess, the baseball experts would have buried him alive. The Texas-St. Louis world series is getting bad TV ratings as expected, but Tony might be reviving the interest all by himself with some crazy controversies.
Speaking of TV ratings, baseball ratings are obviously down and it's a fascinating fact that 14 million people watched game 1 and that's less than half of the 30 million people who watched the world series in 1971. That sounds like a bad stat if you think about the almost 100 million people added to our population since then and the millions of additional HD TV sets in circulation today compared to the seventies. But the context has changed too. We have 700 channels today and people's TV watching habits have changed considerably. So 14 million is not bad and the interesting stat that proves this point is, the world series in 71 was the eighth highest rated TV show that year and guess what! The 8-Th highest rated TV show in 2010 was the World Series as well. We just watch TV differently these days. It's a fragmented audience.
Anyways, the story of the world series right now is the bullpen communication issue ad the phone fiasco. The Cardinals could not get the right pitchers up and ready in the bullpen and every time Tony went to the mound to replace the pitcher in the critical 8-Th inning, he seemed to get the wrong guy sent. It sounds bizarre to say the least and Tony called it embarrassing. Apparently he asked for Motte on the phone and the bullpen coach heard it as Lynn. That's the only explanation. How amazing that a championship game in a 7 billion dollar industry was decided by a bad telephone call? Sometimes in life, crap happens, especially when people instead of machines are involved. But for La Russ and the Cards, these bad mistakes happened at the most inappropriate time yesterday.
There was also another issue with a bad hit-and-run call that apparently Pujols called himself. That's not looking good for Tony right now either. We are learning new things now even in this day and age of 24-hour sports TV and radio where every angle is analyzed a million times daily. Apparently, it's pretty common to have star players call their own hit-and-run sometimes and that's exactly what Pujols did - at the wrong time in this case of course. Also, it's apparently common to have bad phone connection and communication issues with the bullpen. We just don't care enough to learn about all that unless it's the world series. In any case, the Cardinals are now going back home trailing 2-3. They still got 2 games at home and I expect them to push this to game 7 if not win it in 7. It's been an interesting world series so far despite the lack of widespread interest among fans.
In the NFL, it was not a great weekend of football across the league last weekend. The national TV games were horrible as if to help the world series with it's TV rating. Baltimore and Jacksonville forgot how to play offense Monday night and the Sunday night game between the Colts and the Saints looked like one of those college pre-season games between a football superpower and a no-name school - Ohio State V Youngstown State or something. Who wins a pro game 62-7? And these 2 teams were in the Super Bowl less than 22 months back. I have always said (and blogged) that the best examples for the term "franchise player" you can ever find are Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning and Tim Duncan. LeBron too was going to be that guy in Cleveland before he took his talents to South Beach.
Peyton is now proving this point with his absence. The perennial power Colts are 0-7 and all they are missing is this one guy named Peyton Manning. How (franchise) player is that? May be Colts got a little older, may be some talent left, may be their offensive and defensive lines have regressed in ways that the average fan usually can't detect, but there is no way this team is a sub-500 team with Manning, let alone a 0-7 team. That's how great that guy is and quarterbacks are that important in the NFL. Not only is he affecting the Colts, he has single handedly destroyed NBC's TV ratings twice already. They have had 2 unwatchable Sunday night games that they couldn't get out of and those 2 would have been major "blockbusters" if only Manning was playing. The only positive coming out of this for the Colts fans may be that they luck into Luck - Andrew Luck.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Three lessons from the football weekend
Another entertaining football weekend is in the books. The story of the weekend for me was how 3 common football and sports theories were played out right in front of my eyes. These are well-founded theories that have been around forever, but you still see several games where you can't clearly connect the play on the field with these theories and the teams also routinely overcome some of the mistakes and eliminate the effect of these theories. Take for instance the theory that penalties are a killer. It's no breaking news that it's not a good thing if you are moving backwards instead of forward on a football field, but players do commit these penalties sometimes because they are convinced they can overcome it. Most penalties are just mistakes, some are emotional acts, but players do cross the line intentionally at times because they kind of know the down, distance and the score and they think their team can overcome it when it's all said and done. The Oakland Raiders are a good example of this. They have always been notorious for their penalties, but lately, they also have a better record in games in which they commit a lot of penalties than their cleaner games. Weird stat and it sure doesn't give the Raiders much inspiration to play disciplined football.
But the Arizona State Sun Devils were not as lucky as the Raiders on Saturday night against the dangerous Oregon Ducks. The Devils had their hands full against the Ducks on the road, but their many mistakes and bad penalties didn't help the cause. Lesson 1 from the weekend was a particular sequence in this game which in my opinion clearly took the game away from the devils and handed it to the ducks. It was towards the end of the second quarter and ASU was driving down for a score eating good chunks of yards every play. They were already leading 17-14 and were poised to go up 24-14. Brock Osweiler completed another pass to Gerell Robinson to Oregon's 22 and they were almost in the red zone. That's when Robinson committed a stupid penalty and killed the Devils. He got up after the catch and kicked the defender who was on the ground. The penalty took the ball back to Oregon's 37 and Osweiler's next pass was intercepted. Oregon scored and went into the half leading 21-17 instead of trailing. The momentum shifted for good. Robinson's penalty didn't make Osweiler throw the interception, but I strongly believe that this interception would not have happened if the ball was on the 22 yard line instead of back at the 37.
Oregon's speed is just too much and it's just amazing to watch that offense. It's even hard to track the ball on TV as they fake, shift, move and option you do death. They are impossible to beat at home and they always play much better in the second half. All things considered, ducks probably would have put the devils away anyways, but I clearly saw how a stupid penalty can change the momentum, kill a drive and finish a team off prematurely. When I saw that penalty, I became one of those alums you see at the stadium yelling at players saying things like "I pay your scholarship, get your act together you idiot". That always cracked me up and now I was feeling the same anger at Robinson. He had a good game statistically, but he screwed up big time with that penalty. That was a great lesson on penalties and how and why they hurt. Too bad ASU had to suffer through it.
The second lesson of the weekend came on Sunday in the form of an interesting game between the niners and the lions. This game was as good as advertised and the niners won a big one on the road. Conventional football wisdom always says you win with rushing, defense and by playing the field position. This is exactly what the niners did all game. Jim Harbaugh is all about playing conservative, disciplined football and he did the same at Stanford too. Alex Smith and that passing offense is not reliable, but I was still surprised how committed Harbaugh is to his philosophy and how he followed it to a tee from start to finish despite various situations where it would have been easy to start chucking the ball all over Ford field. Many teams win with defense and rushing, but the discipline with which Harbaugh has his team playing right now is pretty striking and impressive. He deserves all the credit in the world for having the niners at 5-1 with basically the same team as last year. It's impressive to see his football philosophy built around defense and rushing considering he was a pretty good quarterback.
Speaking of Harbaugh, he was also the man behind the lesson number 3 from the weekend. Coaches and front office types are constantly asked to stay in their shoes so as to not take attention away from the players and the game on the field. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is the best example of this as he is constantly accused of talking too much, getting in too much trouble and taking away from his team. Coincidentally he lied low last year and the Mavs won the championship. Harbaugh proved to be that guy this weekend when, after the game, he got carried away and gave an excited pat on the back and an aggressive hand-shake to lions coach Jim Schwartz. Schwartz exacerbated the situation by chasing Harbaugh as if he was going to fight him, but Harbaugh definitely broke protocol and misbehaved to start it all off. Both men were at fault, but an important lesson for Harbaugh is that he definitely took attention away from the team and the game. "Handshake-gate" has been the story on sports radio and TV all day across the nation. Even in the bay area, people are forced to talk about it instead of celebrating one of the biggest wins for the niners in many years or talking about the potential for this interesting team. Neither coach got fined and I am fine with that. You can't fine people for bad etiquette. But Harbaugh made a mistake and hope he now understands that he has to save his emotion for the locker room. This is a clear proof of how distracting such behaviors can be.
But the Arizona State Sun Devils were not as lucky as the Raiders on Saturday night against the dangerous Oregon Ducks. The Devils had their hands full against the Ducks on the road, but their many mistakes and bad penalties didn't help the cause. Lesson 1 from the weekend was a particular sequence in this game which in my opinion clearly took the game away from the devils and handed it to the ducks. It was towards the end of the second quarter and ASU was driving down for a score eating good chunks of yards every play. They were already leading 17-14 and were poised to go up 24-14. Brock Osweiler completed another pass to Gerell Robinson to Oregon's 22 and they were almost in the red zone. That's when Robinson committed a stupid penalty and killed the Devils. He got up after the catch and kicked the defender who was on the ground. The penalty took the ball back to Oregon's 37 and Osweiler's next pass was intercepted. Oregon scored and went into the half leading 21-17 instead of trailing. The momentum shifted for good. Robinson's penalty didn't make Osweiler throw the interception, but I strongly believe that this interception would not have happened if the ball was on the 22 yard line instead of back at the 37.
Oregon's speed is just too much and it's just amazing to watch that offense. It's even hard to track the ball on TV as they fake, shift, move and option you do death. They are impossible to beat at home and they always play much better in the second half. All things considered, ducks probably would have put the devils away anyways, but I clearly saw how a stupid penalty can change the momentum, kill a drive and finish a team off prematurely. When I saw that penalty, I became one of those alums you see at the stadium yelling at players saying things like "I pay your scholarship, get your act together you idiot". That always cracked me up and now I was feeling the same anger at Robinson. He had a good game statistically, but he screwed up big time with that penalty. That was a great lesson on penalties and how and why they hurt. Too bad ASU had to suffer through it.
The second lesson of the weekend came on Sunday in the form of an interesting game between the niners and the lions. This game was as good as advertised and the niners won a big one on the road. Conventional football wisdom always says you win with rushing, defense and by playing the field position. This is exactly what the niners did all game. Jim Harbaugh is all about playing conservative, disciplined football and he did the same at Stanford too. Alex Smith and that passing offense is not reliable, but I was still surprised how committed Harbaugh is to his philosophy and how he followed it to a tee from start to finish despite various situations where it would have been easy to start chucking the ball all over Ford field. Many teams win with defense and rushing, but the discipline with which Harbaugh has his team playing right now is pretty striking and impressive. He deserves all the credit in the world for having the niners at 5-1 with basically the same team as last year. It's impressive to see his football philosophy built around defense and rushing considering he was a pretty good quarterback.
Speaking of Harbaugh, he was also the man behind the lesson number 3 from the weekend. Coaches and front office types are constantly asked to stay in their shoes so as to not take attention away from the players and the game on the field. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is the best example of this as he is constantly accused of talking too much, getting in too much trouble and taking away from his team. Coincidentally he lied low last year and the Mavs won the championship. Harbaugh proved to be that guy this weekend when, after the game, he got carried away and gave an excited pat on the back and an aggressive hand-shake to lions coach Jim Schwartz. Schwartz exacerbated the situation by chasing Harbaugh as if he was going to fight him, but Harbaugh definitely broke protocol and misbehaved to start it all off. Both men were at fault, but an important lesson for Harbaugh is that he definitely took attention away from the team and the game. "Handshake-gate" has been the story on sports radio and TV all day across the nation. Even in the bay area, people are forced to talk about it instead of celebrating one of the biggest wins for the niners in many years or talking about the potential for this interesting team. Neither coach got fined and I am fine with that. You can't fine people for bad etiquette. But Harbaugh made a mistake and hope he now understands that he has to save his emotion for the locker room. This is a clear proof of how distracting such behaviors can be.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Theo, the "curse slayer"
Theo Epstein is apparently going to the Chicago Cubs. Can you imagine this guy's potential legacy if he wins a championship in the north side of Chicago? Can he kill the Cubs' curse after doing all of that in Boston? He would be the first official curse slayer in the history of sports. He went in as a kid to run the Redsox with his moneyball philosophy and won 2 championship. He became the proverbial "he doesn't have to ever pay again for a drink in that city" guy in Boston. But it's amazing how much of a pressure-cooker Boston is and how short people's memory are. After the historic collapse in September, I don't want to say people wanted him fired, but he had a bunch of problems on his hands. To be fair to the Bostonians, may be it was more a function of the collapse than people forgetting the 2 championships Theo brought home. Whatever it was, Theo has decided to move on. I can see why he would want to go to Chicago because the opportunity to do this at another storied franchise like the Chicago Cubs is unique. Also, even if he wins more championships in Boston, the payoff will not be what it was in 2004. So it's time for Theo to try something new and fresh. I am sure both teams will be fine as Boston will probably try to retain his deputies and continue with the program. The Cubs on the other hand can use Theo and his program. It may not guarantee them a championship, but I am sure Theo will take them closer to one.
On the field, the baseball playoffs have been interesting, but probably not the most watched. With the North Eastern teams like Boston, New York and Philly eliminated, I am sure the TV ratings are not pretty. But some games have been thrilling. Too bad the DBacks couldn't win on the road, but it took the Brewers 10 innings to eliminate them in game 5. Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder were just too much for the DBacks the entire series. I would like the young Brewers to march on and win it all, but I don't know if I can handle their stupid "beast mode" after every big play. There have been many stupid sports celebrations, but this might be the worst! It's interesting how more and more of the MLB playoffs have moved to cable, much like what happened with the NBA a few years back. NFL seems to be marginalizing all other sports on TV. A Milwaukee-Detroit World Series would be MLB's worst nightmare from a TV ratings perspective and we might just get it. Detroit did lose game 4 today in 11 innings and is now trailing 3-1 to the Rangers. Nelson Cruz is killing them. He has homered in 2 11-Th innings in this series. What are the odds of 2 games going 11 innings in a 7-game series and featuring the same guy homering in both 11-Th innings? Bud Selig would say "only in baseball" and he might even be right, but I am not sure if anybody except Bud is watching these games.
The best news for MLB might be the NBA lockout. NBA seems to be committed to it's self-destructive ways and the league just canceled the first 2 weeks of the regular season. It took more than a decade for the league to recover some of it's lost popularity after the previous lockout and Jordan's retirement, and another lockout is the worst thing they could do at this stage. Thanks to LeBron's talents the last few years at Cleveland and then his stupidity surrounding his "taking his talents to south beach", NBA regained some of it's viewership. The playoffs last year was especially interesting because people had a set of villains - Miami Heat, to root against and they watched the show on TV. Now, the NBA decides to throw it all away by pissing off it's customers. Mainstream America, for the most part, hates NBA and it's players for whatever reason. Some of it is justified, but some of it is just perception and prejudice. But the point is, NBA cannot afford to anger and distance them further. NFL possibly can get away with it, but NBA can't. NBA's owners seem to be oblivious to this and are hell-bent on getting a good financial deal. They should be committed to getting a good deal, but I wish they had the common sense to be committed to not losing even a single game as well. That's apparently too much to ask and now, nobody cares that the NBA is locked out. Hopefully, some of us will care if and when they start playing again.
All this means more time for NFL and college football. There are a couple of states in the union doing great right now - Wisconsin and Michigan. Detroit is especially having a whale of a time in sports. The Detroit Tigers are in the ALCS, the Lions are 5-0 after many years of abject failure and even the Michigan Wolverines are 6-0 and are ranked pretty high. Same story in Wisconsin. The Brewers are in the NLCS, Packers are the only other undefeated team in the NFL with a 5-0 record and the Wisconsin Badgers are 5-0 and ranked 4-Th in the nation. Life is good in the mid-west. Both the Lions and the Packers are in the same division and they don't play their first game until Thanksgiving. I can't wait for that game. Should be a great one after years of bad Detroit football on turkey day. We may be looking at 2 undefeated teams that day or may be 2 teams with a combined 1 or 2 losses. There are other markets seeing a football revival as well. It always feels good to see small market Buffalo do well. Bay Area is enjoying a good season too as both the Raiders and the Niners are looking good after many years. Just like the Packers and the Lions, the Raiders and the Chargers don't play until late in the season and I expect those 2 games to be great and meaningful too. Who would have thought the game of week 6 would be Niners (4-1) at the Lions (5-0). Acid test for both maturing teams, but I expect the Lions to win at home. In college, ASU is going to Oregon for a matchup of ranked teams. Nobody beats Oregon at home. ASU's only hope might be that Oregon's RB LaMichael James might miss this game with an injury. It's a challenging game for the Devils with or without James. Lets see how they handle the pressure.
On the field, the baseball playoffs have been interesting, but probably not the most watched. With the North Eastern teams like Boston, New York and Philly eliminated, I am sure the TV ratings are not pretty. But some games have been thrilling. Too bad the DBacks couldn't win on the road, but it took the Brewers 10 innings to eliminate them in game 5. Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder were just too much for the DBacks the entire series. I would like the young Brewers to march on and win it all, but I don't know if I can handle their stupid "beast mode" after every big play. There have been many stupid sports celebrations, but this might be the worst! It's interesting how more and more of the MLB playoffs have moved to cable, much like what happened with the NBA a few years back. NFL seems to be marginalizing all other sports on TV. A Milwaukee-Detroit World Series would be MLB's worst nightmare from a TV ratings perspective and we might just get it. Detroit did lose game 4 today in 11 innings and is now trailing 3-1 to the Rangers. Nelson Cruz is killing them. He has homered in 2 11-Th innings in this series. What are the odds of 2 games going 11 innings in a 7-game series and featuring the same guy homering in both 11-Th innings? Bud Selig would say "only in baseball" and he might even be right, but I am not sure if anybody except Bud is watching these games.
The best news for MLB might be the NBA lockout. NBA seems to be committed to it's self-destructive ways and the league just canceled the first 2 weeks of the regular season. It took more than a decade for the league to recover some of it's lost popularity after the previous lockout and Jordan's retirement, and another lockout is the worst thing they could do at this stage. Thanks to LeBron's talents the last few years at Cleveland and then his stupidity surrounding his "taking his talents to south beach", NBA regained some of it's viewership. The playoffs last year was especially interesting because people had a set of villains - Miami Heat, to root against and they watched the show on TV. Now, the NBA decides to throw it all away by pissing off it's customers. Mainstream America, for the most part, hates NBA and it's players for whatever reason. Some of it is justified, but some of it is just perception and prejudice. But the point is, NBA cannot afford to anger and distance them further. NFL possibly can get away with it, but NBA can't. NBA's owners seem to be oblivious to this and are hell-bent on getting a good financial deal. They should be committed to getting a good deal, but I wish they had the common sense to be committed to not losing even a single game as well. That's apparently too much to ask and now, nobody cares that the NBA is locked out. Hopefully, some of us will care if and when they start playing again.
All this means more time for NFL and college football. There are a couple of states in the union doing great right now - Wisconsin and Michigan. Detroit is especially having a whale of a time in sports. The Detroit Tigers are in the ALCS, the Lions are 5-0 after many years of abject failure and even the Michigan Wolverines are 6-0 and are ranked pretty high. Same story in Wisconsin. The Brewers are in the NLCS, Packers are the only other undefeated team in the NFL with a 5-0 record and the Wisconsin Badgers are 5-0 and ranked 4-Th in the nation. Life is good in the mid-west. Both the Lions and the Packers are in the same division and they don't play their first game until Thanksgiving. I can't wait for that game. Should be a great one after years of bad Detroit football on turkey day. We may be looking at 2 undefeated teams that day or may be 2 teams with a combined 1 or 2 losses. There are other markets seeing a football revival as well. It always feels good to see small market Buffalo do well. Bay Area is enjoying a good season too as both the Raiders and the Niners are looking good after many years. Just like the Packers and the Lions, the Raiders and the Chargers don't play until late in the season and I expect those 2 games to be great and meaningful too. Who would have thought the game of week 6 would be Niners (4-1) at the Lions (5-0). Acid test for both maturing teams, but I expect the Lions to win at home. In college, ASU is going to Oregon for a matchup of ranked teams. Nobody beats Oregon at home. ASU's only hope might be that Oregon's RB LaMichael James might miss this game with an injury. It's a challenging game for the Devils with or without James. Lets see how they handle the pressure.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Al Davis will be missed
NFL's week 5 started with the sad news of Al Davis passing away. He was an one man show with the Oakland Raiders and was one of the most controversial figures in all of sports. What made him interesting was that he was one of a kind and also the last of his kind. I suppose that's redundant because one of a kind by definition means there's nobody else like him, but it's also worth mentioning he is the last of his kind because you won't see sports owners like him anymore. He was a football lifer who became an owner. Ownership groups are becoming more and more corporate as it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to own teams these days. Most owners are Home Depot CEOs or Bank One co-founders. They may have a pure football guy in their group as a minority owner and even let him be the managing general partner and the face of the franchise. But the days of pure football lifers like Al Davis becoming the all powerful, majority owner of a major sports franchise are long gone. Davis was the owner, GM, head scout, head coach (in hiding) and the primary decision maker for the Raiders for several decades. It's hard to imagine the Raiders without Al Davis or a setup like that in the sports landscape moving forward.
The Raiders lost all of their identity last Saturday and they have to recast themselves now. For better or for worse, Al was the heart, soul and face of the franchise. He did not have a lot of success the last decade or so and has been facing severe criticism both within and outside the Raider nation with many of his decisions. The worst move in my opinion was letting Jon Gruden go after he revived the franchise coming off a few horrible years. Instead of holding onto the only guy who was able to manufacture any success in Oakland in recent years, Al traded him away to Tampa Bay and it came back to bite him the very next year in the Super Bowl. Even Al's famous slogans like "commitment to excellence" have become the butt of ridicule over the last few years. But with all that said, the man deserves a lot of credit for his body of work. He has seen a lot of success during his career and he built the Raiders brand all by himself. He was always independent, ingenious and relevant. Love him or hate him, you could never ignore him. He was never afraid to be in an island and challenging the NFL power structure was his past-time. I found it funny how he was always the only one or may be one of 2 or 3 owners who consistently voted against many proposals in the ownership meetings. He had a mind of his own and you were either with him or against him.
All that aside, Mr. Davis's real contribution as far as I am concerned is how forward thinking and color and gender blind he was. He was a pioneer when it came to hiring black coaches, recruiting from little known black colleges, giving breaks to Hispanic coaches and hiring women executives. He was consistently ahead of the curve on each of those progressive issues and in some cases, he was ahead of the world around him by 20 or 30 years! It's funny and sad at the same time that the NFL is still struggling to create opportunities for black head coaches while Al Davis hired one in 1989. That's what I will remember the most about the man. Al was definitely a maverick and dominated every aspect of the Raiders. He did have a giant ego and some things like the problems he had with Marcus Allen made him look petty. His drafting the last decade have made us all scratch our heads many times and made us wonder if he was holding onto football a little too long. But the progressive and minority-friendly program he ran singularly makes him an impactful and unique legend in the sport controlled by good-ole, billionaire boys.
The Raiders won the game last weekend at Houston on the last play. The game was close and could have gone either way, but winning it was the only way the Raiders could have honored their owner. It was also fitting that Sebastian Janikowski and Darrius Heyward-Bey - 2 of the most controversial and confusing Al Davis draft picks from the last decade, made significant contributions in the victory. It's been really interesting to see how coach Hue Jackson has been using Janikowski's legs this season. His ability to kick long field goals is having a significant impact both on the games and the way Jackson approaches certain situations in a game. May be the godfather was right in making the polish cannon his 17-Th overall pick in the 2000 draft. Speaking of Jackson, he has been very emotional all week since the news and understandably so. He was another one of those Al Davis hires and he seems to be doing pretty well right now. The Raiders are 3-2 and both Davis and Jackson deserve a lot of credit for what this team is doing. With Davis now gone, nobody knows who is going to or who can run the football side of the Raiders. A lot is going to fall on the shoulders of Hue Jackson and that's way too much for a first year head coach to handle. Hope the Raiders figure it all out soon.
For now, all the talk in the Bay Area is still about Al Davis. Mr. Davis, as he liked to be called, will be sorely missed.
The Raiders lost all of their identity last Saturday and they have to recast themselves now. For better or for worse, Al was the heart, soul and face of the franchise. He did not have a lot of success the last decade or so and has been facing severe criticism both within and outside the Raider nation with many of his decisions. The worst move in my opinion was letting Jon Gruden go after he revived the franchise coming off a few horrible years. Instead of holding onto the only guy who was able to manufacture any success in Oakland in recent years, Al traded him away to Tampa Bay and it came back to bite him the very next year in the Super Bowl. Even Al's famous slogans like "commitment to excellence" have become the butt of ridicule over the last few years. But with all that said, the man deserves a lot of credit for his body of work. He has seen a lot of success during his career and he built the Raiders brand all by himself. He was always independent, ingenious and relevant. Love him or hate him, you could never ignore him. He was never afraid to be in an island and challenging the NFL power structure was his past-time. I found it funny how he was always the only one or may be one of 2 or 3 owners who consistently voted against many proposals in the ownership meetings. He had a mind of his own and you were either with him or against him.
All that aside, Mr. Davis's real contribution as far as I am concerned is how forward thinking and color and gender blind he was. He was a pioneer when it came to hiring black coaches, recruiting from little known black colleges, giving breaks to Hispanic coaches and hiring women executives. He was consistently ahead of the curve on each of those progressive issues and in some cases, he was ahead of the world around him by 20 or 30 years! It's funny and sad at the same time that the NFL is still struggling to create opportunities for black head coaches while Al Davis hired one in 1989. That's what I will remember the most about the man. Al was definitely a maverick and dominated every aspect of the Raiders. He did have a giant ego and some things like the problems he had with Marcus Allen made him look petty. His drafting the last decade have made us all scratch our heads many times and made us wonder if he was holding onto football a little too long. But the progressive and minority-friendly program he ran singularly makes him an impactful and unique legend in the sport controlled by good-ole, billionaire boys.
The Raiders won the game last weekend at Houston on the last play. The game was close and could have gone either way, but winning it was the only way the Raiders could have honored their owner. It was also fitting that Sebastian Janikowski and Darrius Heyward-Bey - 2 of the most controversial and confusing Al Davis draft picks from the last decade, made significant contributions in the victory. It's been really interesting to see how coach Hue Jackson has been using Janikowski's legs this season. His ability to kick long field goals is having a significant impact both on the games and the way Jackson approaches certain situations in a game. May be the godfather was right in making the polish cannon his 17-Th overall pick in the 2000 draft. Speaking of Jackson, he has been very emotional all week since the news and understandably so. He was another one of those Al Davis hires and he seems to be doing pretty well right now. The Raiders are 3-2 and both Davis and Jackson deserve a lot of credit for what this team is doing. With Davis now gone, nobody knows who is going to or who can run the football side of the Raiders. A lot is going to fall on the shoulders of Hue Jackson and that's way too much for a first year head coach to handle. Hope the Raiders figure it all out soon.
For now, all the talk in the Bay Area is still about Al Davis. Mr. Davis, as he liked to be called, will be sorely missed.
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