16A Decade of Futility: The Moves that Broke the Raiders
As a spin off of my Jon Gruden article, I thought it might be fun to take a look at the ponderous moves that plagued Al Davis’ final years running the Raiders. Before I go too far, let me say that I have a tremendous amount of respect for Al Davis. He not only built some of the greatest teams of the 70’s, 80’s, and early 00’s, but was years ahead of the rest of the league in terms of civil rights.
He hired the first black head coach in Art Shell and the first female executive in Amy Trask. In the 60’s he refused to play an exhibition game in Alabama in protest of segregation laws and refused to play in cities that would not allow his black and white players to stay in the same hotel.
He did all those great things. On the flip side, he also made these moves . . .
