The 25 Most Overrated Oakland Raiders in Franchise History

It's not easy to make a list of 25 overrated Oakland Raiders. Here is how I selected the players:

1) No players on the current roster. Not enough longevity. 

2) Player had to have been valued to be overvalued. Good players will be on this list. In fact, most of the players on this list were good players for the Raiders.

3) This is overrated Raiders, their NFL careers need not apply. Only the time in the silver and black uniform will count.

4) Not all my opinion. I will present alternative viewpoints even when they do not reflect my own.

I haven't done a good job if you don't find yourself both nodding in agreement and cursing at your computer screen. 

Overrated: Not as Good as You Remember (5)

These are the guys that everyone thought were awesome at the time. When you look back at it, they were either the best of a bad group of players, above-average players that put in great effort or the player was overrated based on a stat or single accomplishment.

Mo Collins

Played left tackle, right guard and left guard for the Raiders from 1998 to 2003. For the most part, the Raiders were successful during Collins' tenure with the team, but Collins was always being shuffled to a different position.

Collins was solid, but I've never seen him compared to Robert Gallery. Both players were drafted in the first round, started at tackle, shifted to guard and had trouble staying healthy at times.

Warren Sapp

A good player on a bad team. Sapp came to Oakland after several tremendous years in Tampa Bay. He provided one 10-sack season, but the other four years in Oakland were among the worst of his career. Sapp was a pure pass-rush specialist and didn't put in the effort in the run game.

Sapp's work as an analyst on the NFL Network has probably killed any stock he had with Raiders fans, but prior to that, Sapp was revered as one of the lone bright spots from 2004-2007.

Greg Biekert

I'll be the first to tell you that I am a big Biekert fan. A durable and consistent "football player" that put in maximum effort and maximized every ounce of talent he had.

The problem was that Biekert wasn't the most naturally talented guy. During his prime, he recorded 100 tackles three times, but he was the starter for eight seasons. Using tackles as the comparison, Rolando McClain's first two seasons have been as good or better than all but two of Biekert's seasons.

He'll continue to be remembered fondly, but Biekert just wasn't as good as we remember him as.

Derrick Burgess

With zero regard for running lanes, Burgess rushed the quarterback. He refused to compete against the opponent's best tackle—the left tackle—and made his living using his speed to get around the right tackle.

He put up big sack numbers, but his play quickly fizzled when he started to lose some of his speed. A flash-in-the-pan player or just one of the better players on a bad team.

Burgess was simply never as good as the stats indicated.

Jay Schroeder

The Raider Nation had a love/hate relationship with Schroeder over the years. Schroeder was basically runoff for Todd Marionvich. After Marinovich failed in the NFL, the fans started to warm back up to Schroeder and cited his 32-25 career record as the starer.

The Raiders were actually wise to replace Schroeder, it was just the choice of replacement that was an issue. Schroeder had a fluke-like 1990 season and wasn't as good as any of his stats indicate he was.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1176644-ranking-the-15-biggest-scandals-in-summer-olympic-history

Overrated: Body of Work (3)

These players had memorable moments as Raiders, but were either splitting time with another player or played with the Raiders for a short period of time.

Bill Romanowski

He was more of a personality than a good player for the Raiders. Romanowski stuck around and his style of play made him a fan favorite, but he put in just two seasons and missed 13 games in his last season before calling it quits.

Napolean Kaufman

The new team chaplain is one of my favorite Raiders of all time and I'm including him here because I think I overrate him. He rushed for 1,000 yards once and only carried the full load in two of his six seasons in Oakland.

Bo Jackson

From a talent perspective, Bo Jackson was the best I've ever seen. The problem with Bo Jackson is that he devoted more time to baseball and because of that he never put up a huge season.

Marcus Allen was also there to share carries so Jackson never got to carry the full weight.

The Techmo Bowl video game and the "Bo Knows" advertising campaign raised Jackson's media hype to ridiculously high levels and he's widely overrated today because of it.

Overrated: Active Players (5)

These are players the Raiders let go in free agency, and for a good reason: they were overrated.

Nnamdi Asomugha

The fans loved him, but he was the top-paid cornerback in the league when he played for the Raiders.

It's very hard to quantify the value of the respect the Raiders gave Asomugha. Opponents probably figured it wasn't worth taking a chance against Asomugha and just attacked other areas of the defense.

His first season in Philadelphia is evidence that he isn't as good as we all thought he was.

Charles Woodson

The difference between Woodson and Asomugha was that Woodson actually makes a lot of plays.

When Woodson only intercepted one ball in four of his last five seasons in Oakland, it was time to move on. Green Bay got lucky with Woodson's production at this point of his career.

Woodson's first three seasons were great, but it wasn't lasting and he may have been impacted by the contract holdouts.

Stanford Routt

You can go on and on about burn rate and man-coverage skills, but at the end of the season, Routt had given up a ton of touchdowns and been flagged for more than his share of penalties.

The fans are either loving or hating the decision to release Routt. He's a solid press-man cornerback, but he's not worth top cornerback money.

Michael Bush

Darren McFadden's injury history has the fans worrying about the departure of Bush. The reality is that Bush is a mediocre running back. He's capable of starting, but easily replaceable.

Greg Knapp has gotten more out of less and the Raiders should find out if any of their other backups are capable if McFadden goes down due to injury again.

The drop-off from Bush to the next player is not as big as it may seem.

Zach Miller

The Seattle Seahawks gave Miller a lot of money and the Raiders responded by signing and overpaying for Kevin Boss. Now two years later, the Raiders still don't have a top option at the tight end position.

While Miller was and is a player worthy of attention, he is far from an elite tight end.

His departure didn't hurt the offense and that indicates that he just wasn't as good as we were led to believe.

Overrated: Raider Legends (7)

Maybe the fact that the following players are regarded as Raider legends lends itself to the idea that they are overrated. Al Davis was loyal to his ex-players that were loyal to the organization.

That loyalty is often valued by fans even when the player's on-the-field accomplishments were not as significant.

Skip Thomas

Played all six seasons with the Raiders, but was only a starter for three of those seasons. Had two very good seasons with six interceptions, but was no Willie Brown or George Atkinson.

Lyle Alzado

Alzado came to the Raiders toward the end of his career and was immediately productive and became a big part of the team after their second Super Bowl victory. It's not that Alzado wasn't a very good player, but he's not one of the dominate Raiders that played during that era.

John Matuszak

His reputation as a wacky character is more well-known than his on-the-field contributions. He was a very good player for four of his six seasons in Oakland. Matuszak didn't start much in his first year with the Raiders and also had a down year in 1979.

Art Thoms

It's hard to believe that some of these legends could be overvalued, but they are. Art Thoms was a very good defensive lineman for the Raiders in the 1970s and a consistent producer for four seasons from 1972 to 1975.

Art has remained close with the Raiders organization and as with many of the players that played on a Super Bowl team, they tend to get put on a pedestal as if every player that played on the Super Bowl teams were the best at their position.

John Vella

Like Thoms, Vella was a solid player for a few years during the 1970s. Vella remained so close to the team that he opened a chain of stores selling team merchandise in the bay area. The economy hit Vella hard and those stores have now been closed.

It's always a little harder to quantify the play of an offensive lineman, but Vella was never a special lineman. Another solid and consistent producer that is overrated based on team accomplishments.

Jim Plunkett

A lot of people will not agree with this one. Plunkett wasn't ever an elite quarterback. He won two Super Bowls, but he was simply one piece to a larger puzzle. Never a 3,000-yard season and he had more interceptions than touchdowns.

"He just won games" sounds like an argument for Tim Tebow. Plunkett had a handful of fantastic moments and games as a Raider, but there's a reason he isn't in the Hall of Fame.

Tom Flores

Flores was merely an average quarterback for the Raiders during his playing career. He won half of the games he started and had just about as many interceptions as touchdowns.

It has been said that Flores didn't do much as coach, as he took control of a talented team and simply tried not to screw it up. I don't agree, but it's one argument that can be made.

Tim Brown

The Hall of Very Good? Is that were Tim Brown belongs? I don't agree and neither will many of you.

Tim Brown didn't get the chance to play for many good teams in his career and had a multitude of different quarterbacks throwing him the ball. I'd argue how underrated Brown was as a player.

No matter my objections, a case can be made. Brown was a perennial Pro Bowler, but never made first-team All-Pro. That means sports writers never considered him among the top two players at his position. Always good, but never great.

Brown also had a number of years at the beginning of his career where he didn't produce at a high level.

Overrated: Hall of Fame (5)

How can a Hall of Fame player be overrated? Easy, the reason they are overrated Oakland Raiders is because their accomplishments were not with the Oakland Raiders, but with other teams.

George Blanda

His long career as a quarterback and as a kicker got him into the Hall. He was strictly a kicker for the Raiders and would not have made it on that alone.

Ronnie Lott

His Hall of Fame credentials were earned in San Francisco, not Oakland.

Eric Dickerson

The Raiders gambled on a 32-year-old running back and got burned. Dickerson wasn't the player he was at 24 with the Rams.

James Lofton

His two years with the Raiders weren't his best. In 1988, he started every game and didn't have a receiving touchdown.

Rod Woodson

Had one spectacular year for the Raiders in 2002 to propel the team to the Super Bowl. He missed time in 2003 and the Raiders' older roster started to unravel. His Hall of Fame career was capped in Oakland, but it was already sealed.