For the love of the game...

Back toward the beginning of the 2006 season, many were telling me that Art Shell, Tom Walsh, Al Davis, and Freddie Biletnikoff were dinosaurs, advocates of a game which no longer existed. They were right, of course, but not in the way they meant. The game that I witnessed through the rise to my maturity in the 60s, 70s, and early 80s no longer exists. The difference is not better and stronger athletes (although the technology of performance enhancing drugs has improved), nor new, brilliant, and innovative schemes regarding Xs and Os. Rather, the difference is a capitalist's wet dream - money, and lots of it.

Don't misunderstand. The money has brought good and bad things. But to me it has turned the game into something more akin to Madden Football than a strategic and violent competition between men. The earlier era had far more room for players to innovate and to improvise on the football field. It cared more for the afternoon enjoyment of the fan rather than viewing the fan only as marketing potential. The players were in it for the love of the game, not for their 15 minutes of fame or whatever jewelry they could sport to flaunt their newly found wealth. The game cared more for giving the fans their money's worth, rather than holding them up by the ankles to shake out every loose penny. I remember the 1973 playoff game between the Raiders and the Dolphins, when Stabler came to the sideline during the final, winning, two minute drive - not to talk strategy with John Madden, but to tell him, while looking into the Oakland stands, "The fans are getting their money's worth today, aren't they Coach."

It's a good thing that the players now get their financial due. Al Davis fought for this, and for good reason. The fans go to stadiums to see the players, not the uniforms. They are the conduit for the money that comes to the owners, the league, and to the broadcaster, not a mere beneficiary. The players in prior generations knew that the money made during the short span of their career would not sustain them and their families for very long unless they made wise investments, or were able to parlay the notoriety during their playing days into a novelty position in a business selling insurance or automobiles. Too many of our sports heroes wound up penniless in institutions or out living on the street.

But the current wealth has also brought with it a new kind of player. Star players have become CEOs of their own corporations, independent of any motivation to function according to the requirements of the team. From the Raider fan experience, we have the recent examples of Randy Moss and Jerry Porter. One easily senses that Moss' weekly interview program was designed to push his line of clothing and to further his personal fame rather than any thought of promoting or encouraging his teammates. One questions whether he ever thought about team at all. It appears more likely that he viewed teammates, and opposing players alike, as little more than electronic images in his private game of Madden Football. If the images didn't serve to pump up his self image and marketing ability, he felt free to delete and set up in a new Franchise mode. A 2-14 season? No problem. It never existed. Delete, start Franchise, begin again. The Players of the 60s and 70s were faced with spending their careers in a single franchise. A losing season meant redoubling your efforts or going through the heartache all over again.

Working out with the team to get in football shape? It's not a priority for Jerry Porter. Workout privately with a personal trainer to get those pretty ripped abs. So much the better background for a large gold dollar sign suspended from a thick gold rope.

It's interesting to me that Al Davis always had the great reputation of being able to work with difficult players. It is not the above mentioned types where Al had his success. The "difficult" players in the earlier years were not egotistical loners. In those more conservative years, players, like Ted Hendricks, were free spirits who hated to wear neckties. They liked a good joke and didn't want to take life too seriously. Football is, after all, a game, and games are meant to be fun. To them, there was nothing more fun than closely matched competition. In those days, rebellion was wearing white shoes. While other organizations treated football like the military preparing for war, the Raiders loved individuality so long as all that mattered on Sunday afternoon was the team and the victory. The personality of a Raider team was the melting pot of individualism directed at a single goal. The Raiders were, in short, the real "America's team."

In the current climate, coaches no longer set their Xs and Os to represent real players. They are part of the computer program. Many modern coaches question whether they should allow their quarterback to audible at the line. In earlier days, quarterbacks frequently called most of their own plays. They knew the value of team because it opened lines of communications between players who would report to the field general whether they were beating their opponent or getting beat. I remember George Blanda, the man who inspired the name of this website, making adjustments by talking to his teammates in the huddle, and drawing new receiver routs and blocking schemes in the blades of grass, like kids will do in pick up games in the neighborhood.

John Madden gave an interview last year, at about the time he was inducted in the hall, and not long after Art Shell was named the Raiders new head coach. He said that he never wanted to sound like he was stuck in the mud, so during his broadcasting career he always questioned whether players of his era could compete in the modern era. Now he views it differently and, he says, more realistically. He asks, instead, "could any of the modern players have survived in the earlier era?"

But for a few, I think not. Old school would defeat the modern era with intelligence, desire, and the flexibility to adjust on the run. Many argue that Art Shell proved that he and Davis were out of touch with today's game. On the contrary, Art Shell proved that the modern player is out of touch with the love of the game.