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.
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