In column after column from the likes of Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle to John Clayton of ESPN, the same refrain is heard:
The Oakland Raiders’ organization has devolved into utter chaos and is the most dysfunctional franchise in the NFL, possibly in the league’s entire history.
A few sports experts have even ventured that the Raiders might just be the worst franchise in ALL of sports.
References to Al Davis' age and competence abound, while armchair diagnoses that Davis may be suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s based on his free agent signings.
The tendency has been to blame Al Davis for everything short of 9/11. Now the angle is that Davis spending money like a drunken sailor. However, as recently as 2006 the standard line was that Davis was too cheap and refused to pay what it takes to land big time players. Isn't this a contradiction?
Has he spent his money any more foolishly than say, Daniel Snyder? No. But you don't hear the same rhetoric when it comes to Snyder. The sports media lambasted Davis' mercilessly for bringing in Randy Moss, yet were strangely quiet when Jerry Jones signed Terrell Owens.
Owens has left two teams in ruin and a third limping as he made his way to Dallas, leaving the figurative smoking corpses of quarterbacks and coaches in his wake. San Francisco still hasn't recovered. Moss whined and quit on his team, but Oakland is no worse off now than before he came to town.
Saying the Oakland Raiders have the worst ownership in the NFL is not remotely accurate. One need look no further than the York family in San Francisco for evidence.
The incompetence of the 49er organization has been astonishing. From allowing Terrell Owens to dictate who the head coach should or should not be to hiring Dennis Erickson to signing Nate Clements to drafting Alex Smith over Aaron Rodgers, the Yorks have blundered at every turn. The San Francisco 49ers have been trying to duplicate the success of the late Bill Walsh in the 1980's with little success. Having gone through four head coaches since Walsh's retirement, all of whom dealt with Bill Walsh looking over their shoulders as a "special consultant" until cancer prevented him from doing so.
Likewise, the Ford family in Detroit has presided over a losing team for close to 50 years. That is not an exaggeration. The Detroit Lions have never been in the Super Bowl and have not competed for an NFL Championship since the 1950s.
The idea that Matt Millen has done a better job than Al Davis is ludicrous as well. Yet the Oakland Raiders are considered a worse franchise than Detroit.
It also bears remembering that Hall of Famer, Barry Sanders retired in his prime because Detroit refused to trade and he knew they would never be a winning team even with him carrying them on his back. He has been proven right.
Experts love to point out the Raiders’ playoff drought over the last five seasons, but rarely mention the Cardinals’ 10-year draught and only making the playoffs once in the last 32 years.
Furthermore, then-NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue was forced to intervene on behalf of the league because Cardinals owner Bill Bidwell was not paying top dollar for decent players and was instead pocketing the money he received through the shared revenue agreement.
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