So here we are...

With one game left in the regular season, the most optimistic view is that the Raiders finish the season at 3-13. While none of us expected a 13-3 season, most were quietly hoping that the Raiders might back into the playoffs at best, or at worst, finish with six wins and strong indications that the team was on the upswing. This is no doubt the worst Raider offensive team that I have witnessed since 1968 when I began following the Raiders. Still, in spite of that, I have been an avid defender of Art Shell and Al Davis. For my efforts, I have been told that I'm a) living in the 1970s, b) have been "drinking the Kool-Aide," and c) too stupid to live.

Instead of casting the blame on Shell and Davis (always the first target of choice), I've placed it where I think it is deserved - circumstances which have created disjointed pieces in any kind of cohesive offensive philosophy. I don't believe the nonsense that Davis selects every pick in the draft (some would hold that Davis makes only the "bad" picks). While it is true that Davis will push for certain players, and will demand a knowledgeable argument from a Head Coach who desires someone else, for the most part coaches select their own players from their first draft onward. After changing Head Coaches with widely differing offensive philosophies six times in ten seasons, the Raiders have created an offensive unit with no glue to hold them together. In this regard they are beginning to resemble the Detroit Lions or the Arizona Cardinals, teams which have followed this pattern for many, many years. I have no doubt that Al Davis is responsible to the extent that he pulled the trigger on each coach, but in two (maybe three) of the cases he simply had no choice.

Countless times I have been told that Al Davis is attempting to relive the 70s. I'd be more inclined to listen to such arguments if the arguments themselves weren't relics of the 70s. I remember them well. "The Raiders will never win a Super Bowl unless Al Davis gives up control of the team." "Madden can't get to the Super Bowl because Al Davis picks his team." "Madden won a Super Bowl because he was successful at simply ignoring Al Davis." We've simply transferred these arguments to each new successful coach. See Tom Flores and Jon Gruden.

I've been told that an owner owes the fans a Super Bowl every year, as amazing as that argument seems. Under that thinking, 30 owners should be forced to sell their team at the end of every season. A team's most honored fans are its season ticket holders. To them an owner owes a team in contention through every home game of the season. That is what a season ticket holder pays for. Al Davis has been more successful at doing this than any other owner for the last four decades, bar none. This is the only four year stretch I can remember that the Raiders played meaningless games on their last home date. 1997, Shell's last year in his first stint, was a successful season on this basis. I believe that if Davis sticks with Shell, the Raiders will have that kind of success next season. If Davis fires Shell, we'll have another roll of the dice. A Head Coach doesn't know the team he has until after his first season. Oh sure, he can gather some knowledge of the talents and athleticism of his players, but he can't know how they will respond under game pressure and seasonal challenges until he's been through at least one season.

Those who are demanding the head of Art Shell are demanding a perpetuation of this problem, cutting the deck in search of an Ace and expecting different results from a dysfunctional group who can't play together, who can't even get along with each other, while the new coach evaluates. Players are beginning to think, "If I can't get the system, who cares? I'll get a different coach after the end of the season, or the season after that." It is apparent to me that Shell has taken the attitude, "This is the system we're going to work with. Get it, or you're gone." If Shell is fired, it sends the message to the current crop of offensive players that the blame for every unsuccessful season will be placed squarely on the shoulders of every departing coach, and the organization is merely waiting for the next messiah. If you want a prescription for discouraging good coaches from coming to the Raiders' organization, that's it.

Coach Shell had an excellent draft in 2006. He focused on the defense. That, coupled with the consistency in coaching of the defensive unit showed marvelous results. With his lower round picks, Shell extracted two young offensive linemen, Boothe and McQuistan, who have developed over the season into keepers. Shell should now be given the chance to focus on the offensive unit, eliminating those players who can't or won't, and replacing them with players who can and will. No one is better capable of doing that right now than Art Shell.

Piling On.

I've learned, over the years, that whenever you have a vast multitude of media voices all saying the same thing it is either because (1) it is recognized that the large majority of the population are buying what the media is selling, (2) multiple reporters are being fed "inside" information that they believe will catapult them into prognosticator stardom, or (3) a combination of the two, one feeding off the other. With the issue of Tom Walsh, it now appears that we started with 2 which morphed into 3.

The sniping at both Art Shell and Tom Walsh began virtually before Shell ever began orchestrating his interviews with his players. We were quickly warned of the Raider disaster from 1994, which wasn't so much of a disaster, merely a disappointment with 9 wins and 7 losses. The Raiders missed the playoffs by their failure to turn one defeat into one more victory. They had made the playoffs the year before, losing to the eventual AFC champion Buffalo Bills. We were told that the reason for that disaster was that Walsh, who inherited a talented, playoff caliber team, ran an archaic offense that provided no opportunity for adjustments, nor took advantage of the skills the players on the roster presented. We were told that Tim Brown and Jeff Hostetler had no faith in Walsh, and would repeatedly change Walsh's plays in the huddle. Walsh was made the butt of jokes for having run a bed & breakfast in Idaho, with no mention of the fact that part of the function of that bed & breakfast was to serve as a recovery center for children suffering from Cancer. We were also told that Shell was Al Davis' puppet, and he was the only one who would any longer accept a Head Coaching position from Al Davis because of Al's insistence on controlling absolutely everything within the organization.

I have even seen it suggested that Al Davis, Art Shell, and Tom Walsh don't care whether the Raiders are losing because they are only in it for the money and/or recognition. Such shear stupidity is not only an insult from the truly ignorant as it relates to these three men, but an insult to everyone who knows their history.

So this is where we began the season. The Jerry Porter situation added to the distractions. Every coach who Porter worked for had experienced attitude problems from the WR. Shell drew a line and Porter immediately crossed it. Initially Shell received support for that line, but sniping in the media soon began to tell us that Shell needed Porter more than Porter needed Shell. Reporters began to compare Porter's transgression against the half effort provided by Moss, and wondered aloud why Moss wasn't being benched like Porter. In the alternative, we were asked why Shell simply couldn't overcome his disagreements with Porter and put him back on the field. The difference between Porter and Moss is rather obvious for anyone willing to examine the issue. What Porter told Shell was that Porter resented that Mike Martz wasn't hired instead, that Porter didn't like Art Shell, that he would not work out with the team in the off season, nor even be in Oakland. Porter showed up at training camp wearing a t-shirt sporting a raised middle finger (keeping it on throughout camp), then developed a mysterious injury, keeping him out of practice and the preseason for the majority of camp. When Porter finally returned to practices he vocally complained about them in the locker room and on the practice field. After returning from a suspension for insubordination and being inserted in several plays, Porter again developed a mysterious injury and has been out of practices again.

Moss, on the other hand, has reported himself to be "unhappy," and that is why he is only giving us half an effort. But unlike Porter, Moss shows for every practice, runs his routs and will still make catches if he doesn't have to work for them too hard. His unhappiness with the team is expressed in the national media, every Monday, but not in the locker room nor on the practice field. Further, Moss has been a force in the game long enough that he still draws coverage. On any given pass play, Moss is drawing three defenders covering his half effort. This, at least, leaves Shell's other receivers in single coverage. Shell isn't "happy" with Moss, and Moss will manage to get himself traded in the off season. But Moss still represents some value for the money. Porter has made himself just so much expensive garbage.

For my part I remember I had complaints about the Raiders in the 1994 season, but I didn't expect that Shell would be fired. My complaints were that the Raiders simply had no running game to speak of, due largely to a very mediocre offensive line. There were a few big names, but the line was inflicted with injuries during the season, and a couple of OL members had careers which lasted less than four years, highly touted coming out of college, but a bust in the NFL. The other part of the Raiders running game was that they had no runner. Harvey Williams, their primary ball carrier, never had a 1000 yard season in his career. The 1994 Raiders had a relatively weak WR corps, and a QB with almost no accuracy on the deep ball. Defenses were free to limit their coverages to protecting against middle range passes, involving their LBs and their safeties. It was vital that the Raiders be able to run in order to be able to pass. Walsh sent Williams into the line again and again with little or no effect.

What was little reported at the time was the dissention in the coaching ranks. I've never been clear about where that dissention came from, but Mike White and others were reportedly going to Al Davis and arguing that the Raiders would never reach another Super Bowl as long as Art Shell was the head coach. White claimed that Shell's offense was archaic, and Shell, himself, a dinosaur. The dissenters managed to get Art and Walsh fired, and White drew the plumb HC job which had been Shell's. Instituting the vaunted West Coast offense, White took Shell's same team to an 8-8 record his first year, and to a 7-9 record his second. After two seasons White was gone, and so was the West Coast offense. The Raiders attempted to return to the vertical offense under Bugel as the players had convinced Davis that they responded well to Joe. The Raiders brought in Jeff George who was a great physical talent but a poor leader. They drafted Napoleon Kauffman who was a lightning quick runner, but so physically light that he could be tackled by a stiff breeze. The Raiders Defensive Coordinator, Fox, quit in the middle of training camp. The Raiders started falling apart before the season even started, and after the first loss to Kansas City, Bugel refused to show up for the post game press conference. The season was ended before it began, and the Raiders went 4-12. Davis went back to the man he had first selected the year before, when the players intervened in favor of Joe Bugel.

Jon Gruden came in and restored order in the locker room. He recognized immediately that the Raiders lacked success because of the personnel. He spent two years rebuilding the team, going 8-8 in each of those years. In his second year he convinced Al Davis to hire his friend from Philly, Mike Lombardi, to help with personnel. Gruden had complained that he had to sell Al Davis on whoever Gruden wanted to bring in or draft. Gruden never said, as many in the press reported, that Al made all of the draft decisions. He merely complained that he didn't want to have to explain himself every time he said he required a player. He felt that Al should just trust him because he was the head coach. I've never had a problem with Al's position on this. Nobody is going to get their mitts on my money unless they can explain to me what I'm buying. There is little doubt in my mind that Gruden had Lombardi join the Raiders so that Lombardi could do the explaining.

After two years of winning football, Jon Gruden left for Tampa Bay. While the press expressed that the reason for the departure was Jon's inability to work with Davis, this was never even alluded to by either Gruden or Davis. Gruden told Davis that his entire family was from and lived in Tampa Bay, and that one almost never gets the opportunity to be an NFL Head Coach in their own home town, and able to even hire members of their own family on the staff. Davis agreed to let him go. For a price. Enter Bill Callahan.

There were rumors after Gruden's first season in Tampa that Gruden was about to bring his friend, Mike Lombardi, to Tampa to take over GM duties. Many in the press already had Lombardi's bags packed. Suddenly, it wasn't Lombardi that was joining Gruden in Tampa, it was the Raiders' defacto GM, Bruce Allen.

Callahan kept Gruden's offensive schemes, never changing them right through the Super Bowl they played against Jon Gruden's Bucs. Jon Gruden proved in that Super Bowl that he knew how to dismantle an offense that he created. It was also apparent, as that first year under Callahan progressed, that Callahan was one of those all too common managers who believe that you keep those under you off balance and uncomfortable by playing head games with them. This is not a good idea where your employees are paid to play a game. Games are supposed to be fun. Otherwise you don't want to play them. By the end of his second season, a 4-12 debacle, Callahan's players virtually mutinied.

And it is this point in Raider history where I believe many of our current struggles began, the season before Turner came on board as Head Coach. The players learned that they could change a Head Coach they didn't like by refusing to play hard for him. It's not that the players sat down to plan such a thing. It's just that there was no joy in practice, it was just very unpleasant. Players showed up to go through the motions of their jobs just to get through it, so they could leave at the end of the day. This is a mindset that can take hold very quickly, and can be extraordinarily difficult to remove. This is the atmosphere that Jerry Porter came of age in. I believe that Jerry Porter simply thinks that this is the way things work in the NFL, and he has no clue that he has done anything wrong. But the long and the short of it is that I don't think that Turner was a bad coach. I just don't think that he recognized the atmosphere in the Raider locker room, and never changed it. As Art Shell noted, "the inmates were running the asylum," and they had been for three years.

Al Davis has stated over the last several years that the biggest mistake he ever made was listening to the backstabbers who managed the ouster of Shell in the first place. In the off season he called on his old friend to return. At the age of 77 it is known that Davis isn't as vital as he once was. His health appears to be failing, and he won't be in this business too much longer. As a man who has devoted his entire reputation to the Raiders over the last forty plus years, the Raiders that he leaves behind will be his one and only legacy. He would like that legacy to resemble what he actually built. Art Shell has been through all of it, the good and the bad. There is no man more capable of restoring Raider traditions both on and off the field. While Davis' financial interest will be inherited by his son, there is little doubt that Shell is slated to play a big part in the Raider organization once Al departs either through retirement or "feet first."

However, Shell has been absent from the organization for the last 11 years. Over that span of time others have moved in close proximity to Al Davis, and those folks hope for their share of the team (either in money or power) after the old man calls it quits. To at least one of them, Art Shell must seem like the bastard child who showed up at the reading of the will to steal a share of the riches. Shell now reveals that such a person has been fomenting the media "pile on" from inside the organization, backstabbing Davis, Walsh, and Shell.

Many have criticized Shell for taking this matter public. If it were simply Shell's idea to get rid of the person causing the problem, I think that Shell would have kept it "in house." That is, and has always been Shell's policy. When Mike Shannahan tried to get Shell fired behind his back, Shell never took that to the public. When Mike White stabbed Shell in the back, Shell remained mum to the press. These things eventually became public because they were revealed by Al Davis. Shell says he knows who the person is, and he will confront that person directly if it continues. By bringing this matter public, Shell is telling the press and the fans that just because you're getting information from "inside" the organization, it doesn't mean that the information is factually based or lacking in "agenda." Some reporters have attempted to identify the source by the process of elimination. Some reporters refuse to speculate and are intent on digging further. Some reporters are attacking Shell for going public in this with continued diatribes on the incompetence of Shell, Walsh, and the rest of the organization. Hmmmm.

Many years ago I stopped listening to various sports reporters I no longer trusted. Some are negative just to be negative. Others imagine they are on some great vendeta like Glenn Dickey who writes the same anti-Al Davis article at the beginning of every season. I've taken my information from making sense of what the players, coaches, and staff say. We all remember how much time the press spent in the off season telling us that no coach wanted to work for Al Davis because of his blasted interference. How awful that an owner should have a say in what he owns. But I found an interesting tidbit regarding some things said by Tim Brown. Brown is often offered up as a big critic of the Raiders, but Brown is a critic of a lot of things. Of particular note is this:

"'Al is going to have his input here and there. That's part of it. But when Jon Gruden came in he was able to change things, and you knew when he spoke, he was speaking from himself and not from Al Davis. I don't think any other Raiders coach has done that except Art.'"

And this:

"Likely still stinging from his exit from the Raiders during 2005 training camp, he's [Brown] not a big fan of personnel executive Mike Lombardi. At one point, Brown detoured into a scathing, unsolicited critique about how Lombardi, and not Davis, is the reason people don't want to play or coach for the Raiders."

That last is particularly interesting in view of the events on Wednesday afternoon. To read the rest of the article, click here.

If you are a relatively recent Raider fan, you likely have no interest in much of this and would simply like to see the team winning again with any offensive system. But for many of us who have been around since the 60s, it is the Raider personality that drew us in, and a take no prisoners swagger that keeps us here. When it becomes apparent that I'm rooting for a uniform and not for a team with which I feel a strong connection, I may well start to lose interest after nearly forty years. There is no one in the NFL who I would like to see succeed more than Art Shell. There is no team I want back in the Super Bowl more than the Oakland Raiders.