Al Davis Death: Longtime Owner Was the Oakland Raiders

One thing you can say about Al Davis, who died at his home on Saturday morning at 82 years of age, is that he was the Oakland Raiders, through the good times and bad.

Very few owners in the history of the NFL created such emotion from their fan base as Davis did. He was a maverick, success and controversial figure all wrapped into one, and he lived his life by his own terms until his final days.

He was a coach, commissioner, general manager and owner, leading the Raiders to three Super Bowls, one AFL championship and four AFC championships.

He created the motto, "Just win, baby," a motto that should stand long after his passing.

And he hired, fired, benched and traded on his own whim, always trusting in himself before anyone else.

While his final days as Raiders owner weren't exactly pretty, few fail to recognize that the same person who oversaw those Super Bowls also oversaw some failures along the way. He was the boldest of the bold.

Sometimes it worked, other times it didn't, but he never lost confidence in himself. He had guts, which was just as respectable as it seemed fantastical at times.

His battles with commissioner Pete Rozelle, running back Marcus Allen, quarterback Ken Stabler and head coaches Jon Gruden and Lane Kiffin were legendary, and Davis made it clear from the start that it was his way or the highway.

He prompted the move of the Raiders from Los Angeles to Oakland, despite the objections of several NFL owners. He single-handedly took on the NFL at times.

He was an individual who split people into two different directions, those who followed him to the end and those who quickly abandoned ship.

He made Art Shell the first black head coach in the modern era of the NFL in 1989.

When describing his feud with Allen in an ESPN documentary, Davis said, via Bloomberg Businessweek, “It’s a deeper story than you even dream, that I was well aware of, and I just got a certain approach to life.”

Same could be said about his surreal tenure with the Raiders.