Biggest Raider Regrets

Hello Raider Nation....  For years we have struggled to get back on track. Blame it on whatever, blame Al blame the refs or whatever..but thus far up to this point what is your biggest regret for the Raiders organization. We all know this franchise has had plenty to give you in terms of regretful choices. There is the Jamarcus selection..or passing on Calvin(at the same time) there is the   Trading away of Gruden for draft picks (who the hell did we draft with those draft picks)
This is Your personal regret on behalf of the Raiders. WHat is your regret.. Is it Al hiring Artv2 .. is it going to a game where you got your azs beat by 9er fans.. is it Rod money.  is it not having instant replay for the immaculate reception ..Is it not drafting Colin Kaepernick. is it the stadium name change to the bigO.co .. what bothers you the most nation?

That Al Davis tainted his legacy. The man was a major player for the NFL, but his last decade really put a black mark on his otherwise extremely accomplished resume. He built a top-heavy card house on a shaky table. What "could have been" is heart breaking for this fan. And Marcus Allen retiring in red. That cut me deep.

losing the super bowl in 2002?

and everything since then?

I think one of the biggest Raider regrets, at least in the last 11 years, really dosent get much attention paid to it but really set the team back. Being unable to trade for Corey Dillion. Now im not sure which was true AL unwilling to trade a 2nd for him or the Bengals refusing to trade to the Raiders after they signed Sapp but either way it hurt. I think that Norv would have had a better run here had he had a runner like Dillion. I think the team would have remained competetive with him, Collins and Moss. Maybe not a super bowl run but at least 8-8 teams and we wouldnt of had to pay JaMarcus or any of the other high priced rookies we were drafting. Just an opinion.

Letting Sean Jones go after one down year. Sure we replaced him with Scott Davis who was solid but Davis got sidetracted from football and left prematurely. When he came back from his hiatus Grek Beikert convinced him to stay gone.

Sean Jones was double digit sacks nearly everyyear of his career. He and Townsend would have been bookends for us for years.

Nobody stressed it because we had great players all over the line. But he should have played his whole career with the Raiders. Thats a mistake that always bothered me.

Everything we have been through got started with the trading of Gruden.  We had one more good season after he left but that was only because of what was left behind, once everything Gruden built here started to fade so did everything else.  That to me started this whole streak of sucking.  The blame for not letting Gruden do his thing falls on Al Davis and his ego.  That was his biggest screw up and my biggest regret.

I have to agree with jgraider about Jon Gruden. In all my years as a Raiders fan, I was never more disgusted with Al Davis than when he shipped Gruden to the Bucs. Jon Gruden was becoming the face of the franchise and Al Davis HATED it. Al Davis always said "just win baby" but when he shipped Gruden, it had nothing to do with winning, it had to do with Al being a control freak.

That move is by far the biggest reason we started losing 10+ games every single year.

Other than that, you could also basically point to EVERY first round pick that we made from 2003 up until now. We have constantly passed on impact players to take underperformers like M.Huff, J.Russell, DHB, R.McClain & R.Gallery. In everyone of those drafts, we had a chance to take MUCH better players in those spots.

Al was pretty good at drafting in rounds 3-7 but he was down right terrible at drafting 1st round picks.

it had nothing to do with winning, it had to do with Al being a conrol freak.

I just don't believe that. I look at facts. Fact is if Al was such a control freak why would he let Gruden run a philosphy that went against what Al wanted to do for 4-5 years. After Gruden was fired and before Al passed away I read an article or two where both Al & Chucky alluded to Grudens agent flasifying reports to each of them and the media regarding what one was saying to the other. While neither said it outright you can see that they both agree a mistake was made because of "some" of the dealing with the agent.

I just don't believe that. I look at facts

Me too and the facts tell me that Al Davis traded J.Gruden after had had just taken us to the playoffs two years in a row.

 Fact is if Al was such a control freak why would he let Gruden run a philosphy that went against what Al wanted to do for 4-5 years

What the fugg does that prove? He also let T.Cable run a west coast offense. He also let L.Kiffin hire G.Knapp to run a west coast offense. He also let Rob Ryan attempt to run a 3-4 defense when Al always favored the 4-3 look.

Just because Al let his coaches run their style of play doesnt mean he wasnt a control freak. Do a little research, I'll bet there are literally a hundred articles about him being accused of doing crazy, overbearing things with his team.

He was especially controlling when it came to his players. He wanted complete control of not only who's on the roster but sometimes he would even force the issue on who he wanted to be starting. That's a HUGE no no for NFL HC's which is why we could never get a respectable one to come to Oakland.

You knew something was wrong when Marcus Allen was benched and then traded.  Dude could probably still play as many games next year as DMC will...

I read somewhere that Al was upset that Gruden was becoming so popular, but it wasn't because Al wanted the spot light, it was because his philosophy was the no one should be bigger than THE TEAM... All loved winning but it was more about Raiders FOOTBALL, everything he built it to be..

That is why he held on to his old ways, the RAIDERS was not just a team, it was Football Philosophy, he truly wanted the RAIDERS to live on forever as the bigger, faster, stronger team, the bully that beat down the man in front of them, almost a villian, he loved the pirate image, a team ran down your throat, took the ball deep down the field.. 

I truly believe Al's pride ran deep for the Raiders philosophy and image moreso that his own pride...His pride was the Raider way.. 

He also let T.Cable run a west coast offense.

Which even further proves my point about Al not being this control freak that those of you who hate the guy & the media try to make him out to be. Sure he hand his hand in every aspect of HIS organization, but what good owner doest? Especially one with as much knowlegde about the field(football) as Al did. It's dosent work for Jones or Snyder because they aren't football guys. Kraft isn't a football guy and he knows this so he has people do it for him. Al was a football guy. All Al ever wanted to do was build an winning organization with "his guys"!!! Sound like a certain GM we have around here now a days that you guys are all googly eyed over. Is he also a control freak?

Is he also a control freak?

If he starts telling his Head Coach which players he has to start....then yes.

If he starts telling his DC'ers that they arent allowed to blitz....then yes.

Reggie McKenzie hasnt been accused of those types of things....yet.

Everybody in the football world knows Al was a huge control freak and meddled in every aspect of the team.  To deny that is to just ridiculous and shows no understanding of Al Davis' history.  That doesn't mean he controlled every decision, that would not be possible, but he tried to control a lot of things no respectable head coach would stand for.  When he couldn't control Gruden because of the success he was having he shipped him out of town and we are who we are now.

Al Davis' decision to make sure Marcus Allen would not become the greatest RB of ALL-Time.  Seeing how Marcus Allen was getting more publicity than the Oakland Raiders did.  That was when Al Davis decided that he would put a stop to Marcus Allens touches of the ball.  He was not to play.  That single handedly created issues amongst the players and the coaches.  I believe this impacted the Raider Legacy- Al's Legacy as well as future FA's and top coaches coming to the Raiders.  Gruden came to the Raiders as an extremely young coach with a great offensive mind and an ability to get alot out of his players.  Gruden had the personality to inspire the media, the fans and the players.  Al Davis tried the same with others like Lane Kiffin, Mike Shanahan, Jason Garrett, Sean Payton and Steve Sarkisian.  Al Davis knew talent and knew good coaches.  He just did not want to pay them or allow them total control over the direction of the franchise.


Again I believe when Al Davis sabotaged Marcus Allens last few years with the Oakland Raiders that is when this franchise changed forever from "Commint to Excellence" and "Just Win Baby" to Your not bigger than the Raiders, it is not about the great players- you will see.  Thatis the biggest Raider regret.  Al Davis making it personal with Marcus Allen.
 
I  believe that if Marcus Allen was allowed to play RB and receive the number of touches that he did his first 4 or 5 years we would have gone further in the playoffs, possibly making it to another Superbowl or two.


  

     

Al not surviving at least a few more years to see at least one more superbowl win.  Instead we get to hear whining about the cap and how the current administration can't figure it out. We would be coming out of a playoff year with a solid HC, we would have an owner who knows how to get under the cap and bring in talent at the same time, and most importantly we would have a direction. 

Al certainly meddled.  After all it is his team.  Has been for a long, long time.  Never could quite understand how someone could like the Raiders, but not Al Davis. 

 Never could quite understand how someone could like the <span style="color: #0d3a80;">Raiders, but not Al Davis.

I agree with this but only to a point.

I will always have respect for what Al Davis did for the Silver and Black. At the end of the day, Al Davis WAS the Oakland Raiders. Everything they stood for was because of him. The renegade, us against the world approach was always fueled by Al Davis.

However, having said that, there's no denying that over the last ten years Al Davis did more harm than good to our favorite team. He fired coach after coach, season after season all because he wouldnt conform or adjust to the modern NFL. Instead of hiring quality coaches and letting them run the team the way they needed to, Al Davis was constantly meddling in his coaches business. That's the main reason that we were constantly turned down by quality coaches (J.Harbaugh, S.Payton, B.Parcells) and forced to deal with turd HC's.

Also, Al Davis absolutely KILLED this team with his inabilty to judge upper tier talent. We had lost 10+ games for like 7-8 years straight which kept landing us top ten picks but we NEVER secured a true impact player with any of those picks. If you're picking in the top ten for that many years in a row, you should be able to build a pretty f'n talented team but we didnt.

We kept taking guys like R.Gallery, J.Russell, M.Huff, DHB and R.McClain when there were MUCH better prospects available. In today's NFL, you simply cant afford to keep missing on first round picks like we did.

Al Davis was also TERRIBLE at signing free agents towards the end. Trading for and then giving big money to D.Hall was a disaster. Giving J.Walker $7 million a year when no other team would have even offered half that (because of his bum knee's) was another huge mistake. Giving up two 1st for a 29 year old R.Seymour? Yeah, that worked out well.

At the end of the day, I still have a very positive memory of Al Davis but dont act like he didnt give Raiders fans a TON of reasons to be critical of him over the last decade.

This forum...

However, having said that, there's no denying that over the last ten years Al Davis did more harm than good to our favorite team. He fired coach after coach, season after season all because he wouldnt conform or adjust to the modern NFL. Instead of hiring quality coaches and letting them run the team the way they needed to, Al Davis was constantly meddling in his coaches business. That's the main reason that we were constantly turned down by quality coaches (J.Harbaugh, S.Payton, B.Parcells) and forced to deal with turd HC's.

Being able to admit when you made a mistake... It takes a big man to be able to do so. Al Davis could tell when the new head coach was not going to pan out long before other owners and GMs would be willing to admit it. Would you have rather seen the Raiders hang on to Norv Turner like the Chargers did?