Al Davis is dead

http://www.raiders.com/

wow! he was old, but i didn't know he was frail or sick. RIP.

it was a bit of a jobs-like passing wasn't it...

http://cdn.bleacherreport.com/images_root/image_pictures/0097/0433/aldavis-1_crop_340x234.jpg

rip al davis!

R.I.P.

LilTunechi Lil Wayne WEEZY F
Damn...R.I.P. Al Davis... Unlike no other,fearless,content,consistent,& just an all around unforgettable figure in American football.

Fuck. I hated him, but I didn't want to see him go. He's like the villain who should always be around.

rip

al was one of a kind

aw holy fuck

i grew to love this clown, i gotta say

ally wants to know who owns the raiders now and suspects they will be up for public auction at an estate sale soon. I suggest we take advantage of this at once because we missed out on the silverdome

Oooh! We sure did. I'd love to be a part owner of the Raiders.

Al hasn't been well for a while now, he was frail as hell in the last press conference he held. I'm not sure exactly how sick he was, but he was pretty sick.

I don't know if I've ever loved someone that I hated so much.

Deepest condolences, VG.

It's fucking weird. I wished him dead more times than I can count, but him actually dying kinda sucks. I love how much he loved the Raiders. Right or wrong, dude bled silver and black.

ally wants to know who owns the raiders now and suspects they will be up for public auction at an estate sale soon. I suggest we take advantage of this at once because we missed out on the silverdome

His heirs own the team, and Amy Trask (the first female CEO in pro sports, by the way!) is still CEO.

when he moved the Raiders to LA it was good times in LA. saw them play twice the year they won the Super Bowl with Lyle Alzado & Marcus Allen. what a total evil villain asshole he was, classic figure. goodbye, Al, you will probably be replaced by somebody nobody'll remember even five minutes after he's gone.

Didn't think Al could die tbh. Shaken.

Sadly, he is human after all. Was hoping cyborg zombie. Boo.

What color will the memorial uniform patch be?! Black will just be lost on their uniform jerseys.

I'm glad that in the end he finished with two great drafts filled with players that are "his" players through and through.

Mark Schlereth wrote:
Best Al Davis story: when I 1st started @ ESPN he used to have 1 of his guys call me weekly to complain about something I said on TV.

lol since Schlereth was a Bronco.

nice post from the espn afc west blogger abt his personal experiences with al: http://espn.go.com/blog/afcwest/post/_/id/33414/my-time-with-al-davis

dude invented the forward pass, the municipal shakedown, the african-american head coach... he was a sonofabitch who didn't care to be loved but he loved football and loved the raiders and loved anyone who wanted to win the raider way. just rest, baby.

http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/301561_273509186012909_117307284966434_894315_1273519336_n.jpg

invented the forward pass

sid gilman

I wore my Raiders t-shirt to the store this afternoon, and while I was loading up my trunk a woman walked by wearing her Raider shirt too. We complimented each other on our attire, and then she said "I think the sun is shining because Mr Davis is up there now"...it was a nice moment.

...and then she said "Let's see what he does for us tomorrow." Hee hee.

lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWhmOfCfmco

sid gilman

― polyphonic, Saturday, October 8, 2011

smh

yeah i miss him too. sorry, VG! also i miss you on ilnfl lately.

Yeh I've been slackin...but I'm comin back baby!

This is more of an "Innocuous thing that makes me irrationally angry" but it's specifically Raider related & sorta dovetails with Al Davis so..

This VP at my office is a fellow Raider fan, but he's a condescending, patronising blowhard & he has been driving me nuts.

He came to me all disgusted after the Buffalo loss & said this is the worst team ever. I was kinda stunned at that, told him I like this team more than I have in a long time and I have seen them suck firsthand, and that wasnt sucking...they make mistakes but they play 4 quarters & at least fight...& he cuts me off & says "When you've been a fan as long as I have you have an expectation blahblah" and ugh he was such a dick to me, I fucking hate that he even calls himself a fan.

Today he said, "That win was terrible. Ugh this team. Maybe you start looking for another team." I was like, "Dude we won! And if I've been a fan for these last 10 years, then I'm in it for life. Why would I change teams? Because theyre not pretty like the Pats?" and again he gives me that fucking lecture about him being a fan for longer & I don't understand the Raiders like he does and ugghgggg I just wanted to fucking run him through a window.

I know they're not great,and I'm the first to call out their failings, but he hardly ever watches a whole fucking game! He watches the last half of the last quarter so he can talk football at the office like a blowhard.

I dont usually question someone's fanship but, fuck. Dude is a DOUCHE

Okay. I'm vented. Sorry!

Gross. Sorry you have to put up with that.

Bob Costas kind of nuked Davis last night on Sunday Night Football. Not exactly the most complimentary of essays.

I'll never understand why Al Davis did Marcus Allen like he did. It seemed really petty and unnecessary.

fans who complain about wins are the worst.

I read Costas' comments today...all in all I don't disagree, I think it annoys me more that it's Costas saying it. I mean, he was a crazy coot towards the end, and he was very much about having an "inner circle" and he didn't care how that looked to outsiders. The one thing I like about him is that he did a lot of good for players and people he met in the NFL, like ridiculously generous things and never mentioned it to anyone. Parcels and Ditka both told cool stories about their interactions with him in Sunday NFL countdown, dunno if anyone saw it: Ditka was poached from the NfL to play with the AFL before the merger, and Davis gave him a $50,000 signing bonus...then the merger happened, and Davis told Ditka to keep the bonus anyway. Parcels met Davis in 63 at an All-Star game when he was a player...he sat up one night and picked Davis' brain about football and Davis was impressed by how interested he was in the mechanics of a game. Parcels broke his hand during the week, but decided to play anyway because he needed the money. For the allstar game he got $600 for a win, and $400 for a loss. Parcells' team lost - after the game Davis gave Parcells $200.

There's a lot of bad stories about him, and I have no problem with those being told. They're true. Davis engineered his own legacy. He enjoyed being the bad guy.

I didn't have my full attention on Costas during that segment, but I didn't hear anything to disagree with. It made me think of the criticisms of Steve Jobs on his RIP thread, which I also didn't have a problem with.

Also, VPs be dickheadin'. I'd turn around and walk off if the dude ever says the word "Raiders" to you again. "Sorry, I'm not qualified to discuss it."

http://www.thenation.com/blog/163880/legacy-al-davis-oakland-raider-urban-raider

there wasn't really anything "wrong" in the costas monologue but the point is more that it's not 1963 and no one gives a shit about what some tv dude has to say while staring into the camera for 3 minutes. we have blogs now, costas is no more an authority than you or me or anyone else.

btw thanks for that link k3v--good perspective for sure

Costas hates anything about football that doesn't involve Bronco Nagurksy. I don't want to hear what he has to say. At all. Ever.

Haha WmC! I should do that!

Actually, come to think of it, I have a vuvuzela at my desk, I think I'll just blow it at him the next time he tries to talk football with me.

(xxposts)

The Al Davis era ends, and the Terrell Pryor era begins.

fart

I forgot about Pryor completely.

I agree with Zirin. Davis was the ultimate believer in handouts from poor cities to rich businesses: corporate socialism. And he fucked multiple municipalites along the way,and promised to fuck Oakland again. This "rebel" image was kind of a sham. So he hired Tom Flores, big fucking deal?

Really, the "ultimate" believer? I don't think he was unique among the owner class in that respect.

I cant think of another owner that relocated twice in order to get more public handouts. Plus he was threatening to do it a third time at the time of his death.

There are plenty of owners who didn't have to relocate in order to make the local community pay a shitload of money for the luxury of having a football team in town.

I honestly can't think of a sports franchise that hasn't leveraged their city to get something, usually a new stadium. The Packers, I guess.