The Oakland Raiders are a National Football League team based in Oakland, California. The team was founded in 1960 as a charter member of the American Football League and joined the NFL as part of the AFL-NFL Merger.

Founded: 1960

Formerly known as: Los Angeles Raiders (1982-1994)

Home field: McAfee Coliseum (1966-1981, 1995-present)

Previous home fields:

Kezar Stadium (1960)

Candlestick Park (1961)

Frank Youell Field (1962-1965)

California Memorial Stadium (one game, 1972)

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (1982-1994)

Uniform colors: 1960-1962: Black, Gold and White, 1963-Present: Silver and Black

Helmet design: Silver with a black shield with crossed swords and image of a Raider.

Legally, the team is a limited partnership operated by Al Davis, who serves as President of the team's general partner, A.D. Football, Inc.

Franchise history

The Oakland Raiders became a charter member of the American Football League after the city of Oakland was awarded a franchise on January 30, 1960. The Raiders were the new league's eighth franchise, replacing the Minnesota representatives, who forfeited their AFL franchise upon receiving an expansion franchise (which was then named the Minnesota Vikings) in the established National Football League.

At the time, Oakland seemed an unlikely venue for a professional football franchise. The city had not asked for a team, there was no ownership group formed, there was no stadium in Oakland suitable for pro football (the closest stadiums were in Berkeley and San Francisco) and there was already a successful NFL franchise across San Francisco Bay in the San Francisco 49ers. However, the AFL owners selected Oakland after Los Angeles Chargers owner Barron Hilton threatened to forfeit his franchise unless a second team were placed on the West Coast. Hilton also refused to endorse a bid from the city of Atlanta.

Upon receiving the franchise, Oakland civic leaders found a number of businesspeople willing to invest in the new team. A limited partnership was formed to own the team, which included general partners Harvey Binns, Don Blessing, Charles Harney, Ed McGah, Robert Osborne, and Wayne Valley, headed by managing general partner Chet Soda, a local real estate devloper, as well as numerous limited partners. A "name the team" contest was held by a local newspaper, and the winner was the Oakland SeГ±ors (After a few weeks of being the butt of local jokes, the owners changed the team's name to "Raiders," which had finished third in the contest). The original team colors were black, gold and white. The now-familar team emblem of a pirate (or "raider") wearing a football hemet was created, reportedly a rendition of actor Randolph Scott.

When the University of California refused to let the Raiders play home games at California Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, they chose Kezar Stadium in San Francisco as their home field. The team's first regular season home game was played on September 11, 1960, a 37-22 loss to the Houston Oilers. The Raiders finished their first campaign with a 6-8 record, and lost $500,000. Soda dropped out as a partner of the franchise

On January 17, 1961, Ed McGah, Wayne Valley and Robert Osborne bought out their partners in the ownership of the Raiders. That year the Raiders moved to Candlestick Park and finished 2-12. Total attendance for the season was about 50,000. Valley threatened to move the Raiders elsewhere unless a stadium was built in Oakland. In 1962 the Raiders moved into 18,000-seat Frank Youell Field (later expanded to 22,000 seats), their first home in Oakland. It was a temporary home for the team while the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum was being built. The Raiders finished 1-13 in 1962, losing their first 13 games before winning the season finale, and attendance remained low.

After the 1962 season, Valley hired Al Davis, a former assistant coach for the San Diego Chargers, as head coach and general manager. At 33, Davis was the youngest person in professional football history to hold the positions. Davis changed the team colors to silver and black, primarily because those colors stood out in an era when most people watched football games on black-and-white television sets. Under Davis the Raiders improved to 10-4, and he was named the AFL's Coach of the Year. In 1966, Davis left the Raiders and became Commissioner of the AFL. Four years later, the club captured the 1967 AFL Championship. With John Rauch as head coach, the Raiders won the 1967 AFL Championship, defeating the Houston Oilers 40-7. The win earned the team a trip to Super Bowl II, where they were beaten 33-14 by Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers.

In 1969, John Madden became the team's sixth head coach, and during the 1970s his Raiders' became one of the most successful franchises in the NFL.

In 1970, the AFL-NFL merger took place and the Raiders joined the West Division of the American Football Conference in the newly merged National Football League. The merger left Davis embittered. He envisioned a professional football landscape not unlike that of Major League Baseball, with two independent leagues sharing a common draft and playing a championship game at the end of the season. He felt betrayed by the AFL owners, who jumped at the chance to extinguish the newer league so they could receive NFL franchises. He resented the fact that a "football man," like himself, was subject to the whim of owners whose expertise was far outside the realm of the game. Davis' goal, therefore, was to become an owner himself.

With the merger, the position of AFL Commissioner was no longer needed, and Davis entered into discussions with Valley about returning to the Raiders. Davis returned as part owner of the team, and as the team's third general partner; the partner in charge of football operations.

In 1972, with Valley out of the country for several weeks attending the Olympic Games in Munich, Davis' attorneys drafted a revised partnership agreement that gave Davis total control over all of the Raiders' operations. McGah signed the agreement. Under partnership law, by a 2-1 vote of the general partners, the new agreement was thus ratified. Valley was furious when he discovered this, and immediately filed suit to have the new agreement overturned. The courts sided with Davis and McGah. As a result, Valley sold his interest in the team, and Davis---though owning but a small portion of the team---was firmly in charge.

Madden left the Raiders (and coaching) in 1979 to pursue a career as a television football commentator. Madden's replacement, former Raiders quarterback Tom Flores, guided the team to a win in Super Bowl XV.

In 1982, the Raiders moved to Los Angeles, California to play their home games at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The Los Angeles Raiders won Super Bowl XVIII the following year. In 1987, the Raiders drafted dual-sport athlete Bo Jackson after he originally decided to not play professional football in 1986 (when drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the first round). Davis's perceived infatuation with Jackson caused a major rift between Davis and star running back Marcus Allen, who eventually left to play for the Kansas City Chiefs.

During the 1989 season, Davis fired head coach Mike Shanahan and replaced him with former Raider lineman Art Shell. Shell was the first African-American head coach of the modern NFL era. Shell led the Raiders to the AFC Championship game in the 1990 season, where they lost a lopsided affair to the Buffalo Bills, 51-3.

The team's fortunes faded after the loss. They made two other playoff appearances during the 1990s, and finished higher than 3rd place only three times. This period was marked by the career-ending injury of Bo Jackson in 1990, the failure of troubled quarterback Todd Marinovich, the departure of Marcus Allen in 1993 and the retirement of Hall of Fame defender Howie Long after the 1993 season.

On June 23, 1995, Al Davis signed a letter of intent to move the Raiders back to Oakland. The move was greeted with much public fanfare, and the 1995 season started off well for the team. They started 8-2, but injuries to starting quarterback Jeff Hostetler contributed to a six-game losing streak to end the season, and the Raiders failed to qualify for the playoffs.

In 1998, Al Davis strayed away from his habit of hiring a head coach from the team's ranks for only the second time in franchise history when he hired Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Jon Gruden, a young assistant who first worked for the 49ers under head coach Bill Walsh. Under Gruden, the Raiders started to play with a sense of discipline that had been lacking in previous years.

The 2000 season, the team's 3rd under Gruden, was the team's most successful in a decade. Led by veteran quarterback Rich Gannon, the team finished 12-4 and advanced to the AFC Championship, losing 16-3 to the eventual Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens.

The Raiders acquired all-time leading receiver Jerry Rice prior to the 2001 season. They finished 10-6, but lost their divisional playoff game to the eventual Super Bowl champion New England Patriots in the controversial "Tuck Game." The game was played in a heavy snow storm, in which an apparent fumble by Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was recovered Charles Woodson. The play was reviewed and determined to be an incomplete pass.

Shortly after the 2001 season, The Raiders made an unusual move that involved trading Jon Gruden to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for cash and future draft picks. Bill Callahan, former offensive coordinator and offensive line coach of the Raiders during Gruden's tenure, was named head coach. The sudden move came after months of speculation in the media that Al Davis and Gruden had fallen out with each other both personally and on a business level.

The Raiders finished the 2002 season with an 11-5 record and clinched the top seed in the playoffs. Gannon was named MVP of the NFL, and the Raiders made their fifth Super Bowl appearance following the season. They lost Super Bowl XXXVII to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, now coached by Gruden.

The Raiders finished the 2003 season, their second year under Callahan, with a record of 4-12 (tied with three other teams for the worst record in the NFL). It was the worst record ever for a team that had played in the Super Bowl the previous season. At a post-game press conference during the season, Callahan berated both his players and the media for the team's poor performance [1]. At the end of the 2003 regular season Callahan was fired and replaced by Norv Turner.

The teams's fortunes did not improve in Turner's first year. They finished the 2004-2005 season with a 5-11 record, the team's second consecutive losing campaign. In early 2005 the Raiders acquired Pro Bowl wide receiver Randy Moss via a trade with the Minnesota Vikings [2]. The team will begin the 2005 season without longtime starting quarterback Gannon, who retired due to a neck injury suffered during the 2004 season [3].

Legal battles

The Raiders have been involved in several lawsuits with the cities of Los Angeles and Oakland, as well as with the NFL.

• When the NFL first declined to approve the Raiders' move from Oakland to Los Angeles back in 1980, the team along with the Los Angeles Coliseum successfully sued the league for violating antitrust laws.
• They were the only team that was not a defendant in the USFL's ultimately unsuccessful antitrust suit against the NFL; Davis was a witness for the USFL in that action.
• The Raiders sued the city of Los Angeles over the fact that the city backed out of a stadium deal for the team.
• After relocating back to Oakland, they sued the NFL for interfering with the team's negotiations to build a new stadium at Hollywood Park prior to the move. The lawsuit further contended that the Raiders had the rights to put an NFL team in Los Angeles, and thus were entitled to compensation from the league for giving up those rights by moving to Oakland.
• Their most recent legal battle is with the city of Oakland. In this lawsuit, the Raiders agreed that they would sell out all of their home games, in exchange for the city helping to renovate their stadium. They did this by issuing Personal Seat Licenses, without which fans cannot buy tickets to the games.

Season-by-season

Players of note

Current roster

Pro Football Hall of Famers

• Marcus Allen (2003) - 1982-1992
• Fred Biletnikoff (1988) - 1965-1978
• George Blanda (1981) - 1967-1975
• Bob Brown (2004) - 1971-1973
• Willie Brown (1984) - 1967-1978
• Dave Casper (2002) - 1974-1980, 1984
• Al Davis (1992) - 1963-1965, 1966-Present
• Eric Dickerson (1999) - 1992
• Mike Haynes (1997) - 1983-1989
• Ted Hendricks (1990) - 1975-1983
• James Lofton (2003) - 1987-1988
• Howie Long (2000) - 1981-1993
• Ronnie Lott (2000) - 1991-1992
• Ron Mix (1979) - 1971
• Jim Otto (1980) - 1960-1974
• Art Shell (1989) - 1968-1982
• Gene Upshaw (1987) - 1967-1981

Retired numbers

None (the Raider organization does not retire the jersey numbers of former players)

Not to be forgotten

• Lyle Alzado
• Cliff Branch
• Tim Brown
• Billy Cannon
• Todd Christensen
• Clem Daniels
• Tom Flores
• Dave Grayson
• Ray Guy
• Wayne Hawkins
• Lester Hayes
• Bo Jackson
• Sean Jones
• Daryle Lamonica
• John Matuszak
• Art Powell
• Jim Plunkett
• Jerry Rice
• Otis Sistrunk
• Ken Stabler
• Jack Tatum
• Rod Woodson

Head coaches

• Eddie Erdelatz (1960-61)
• Marty Feldman (1961-62)
• Red Conkright (1962)
• Al Davis (1963-65)
• John Rauch (1966-68)
• John Madden (1969-78)
• Tom Flores (1979-87)
• Mike Shanahan (1988-89)
• Art Shell (1989-94)
• Mike White (1995-96)
• Joe Bugel (1997)
• Jon Gruden (1998-2001)
• Bill Callahan (2002-2003)
• Norv Turner (2004-present)

See also

• Immaculate Reception
• Other American Football League players
• Holy Roller
• Heidi Game
• Sea of Hands

External links

• Oakland Raiders web site
• Oakland Raiders page on the American Football League Website

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