The Bobcat Nation

In his younger days he truly was one of the great innovators and did a lot for football as we now know it.

JUST WIN BABY

I was just wondering about this, so I will post it here.

For those of you who are Raider fans, what are your thoughts about Al passing?

Are you grieving, or are you happy/relieved/etc. that he is now out of the picture?

Bay Area Cat wrote:I was just wondering about this, so I will post it here.

For those of you who are Raider fans, what are your thoughts about Al passing?

Are you grieving, or are you happy/relieved/etc. that he is now out of the picture?

For me: kind of both. Al Davis was a brilliant mind and an innovator of the game. Unfortunately, a lot of his overall legacy will be looked at by the last ten or so years where Oakland has made a ton of terrible/questionable decisions from players selected to coaching hires, etc. I think with Al passing away, there will be more stability with the Silver and Black...

RIP AL

Bay Area Cat wrote:I was just wondering about this, so I will post it here.

For those of you who are Raider fans, what are your thoughts about Al passing?

Are you grieving, or are you happy/relieved/etc. that he is now out of the picture?

I have essentially the same feelings as coach about it, but I was listening to ESPN radio this week and I think it was on the Scott Van Pelt show that it was summed up pretty well at least for me. He kind of contrasted it with Steve Jobs passing. Both men were visionaries that could see the future of their prospective fields and pushed to get their before others. The difference was that Al Davis got to that future and then stopped, whereas the really amazing innovators, like Jobs, keep doing that same thing on a continual basis.

kmax wrote:

Bay Area Cat wrote:I was just wondering about this, so I will post it here.

For those of you who are Raider fans, what are your thoughts about Al passing?

Are you grieving, or are you happy/relieved/etc. that he is now out of the picture?

I have essentially the same feelings as coach about it, but I was listening to ESPN radio this week and I think it was on the Scott Van Pelt show that it was summed up pretty well at least for me. He kind of contrasted it with Steve Jobs passing. Both men were visionaries that could see the future of their prospective fields and pushed to get their before others. The difference was that Al Davis got to that future and then stopped, whereas the really amazing innovators, like Jobs, keep doing that same thing on a continual basis.

Al pushed the future for 50 years and then went into downfall for another 10, Jobs only pushed it for 30 years and even at that took several breaks.

Like coach said above I have some mixed feeling, he did a ton for the game and was one of the great ones, however the last 10 years have been pretty erratic.

Around here, the biggest gripe about him (outside of strange draft choices) is the way he jerked around the City of Oakland and Alameda County ... and L.A., for that matter. He abandoned the city and its fans for a bigger pot of gold down south. Then that didn't pan out the way he wanted, so he extorted a huge amount of money from East Bay taxpayers, then sued those taxpayers for even more, and ruined their baseball stadium in the process.

Beyond the AFL days and his willingness to hire women and minorities, what were some examples of him pushing for better things?

Bay Area Cat wrote:Around here, the biggest gripe about him (outside of strange draft choices) is the way he jerked around the City of Oakland and Alameda County ... and L.A., for that matter. He abandoned the city and its fans for a bigger pot of gold down south. Then that didn't pan out the way he wanted, so he extorted a huge amount of money from East Bay taxpayers, then sued those taxpayers for even more, and ruined their baseball stadium in the process.

Beyond the AFL days and his willingness to hire women and minorities, what were some examples of him pushing for better things?

It's been interesting listening to the love fest for Al on Sirius NFL Radio, but one point I think Rich Gannon brought up is that most all the lawsuits he was in he won, which essentially means he was right. This goes mainly to the moving to LA point. Good or Bad it allowed the Cardinals, Browns/Ravens, and Rams to move. It's interesting listening to Bay Area folk's take on Al. Not much middle ground, it's either love or hate.

On that note someone should extort the West Bay taxpayers for some football money, since they already did for baseball...Candlestick is the biggest dump in the NFL...dare I say worse than the Metrodome.

Eric Ohs wrote:

Bay Area Cat wrote:Around here, the biggest gripe about him (outside of strange draft choices) is the way he jerked around the City of Oakland and Alameda County ... and L.A., for that matter. He abandoned the city and its fans for a bigger pot of gold down south. Then that didn't pan out the way he wanted, so he extorted a huge amount of money from East Bay taxpayers, then sued those taxpayers for even more, and ruined their baseball stadium in the process.

Beyond the AFL days and his willingness to hire women and minorities, what were some examples of him pushing for better things?

It's been interesting listening to the love fest for Al on Sirius NFL Radio, but one point I think Rich Gannon brought up is that most all the lawsuits he was in he won, which essentially means he was right. This goes mainly to the moving to LA point. Good or Bad it allowed the Cardinals, Browns/Ravens, and Rams to move. It's interesting listening to Bay Area folk's take on Al. Not much middle ground, it's either love or hate.

On that note someone should extort the West Bay taxpayers for some football money, since they already did for baseball...Candlestick is the biggest dump in the NFL...dare I say worse than the Metrodome.

Santa Clara taxpayers are stepping up to the plate to take on that big pile of debt. They voted to kick in a couple hundred million for the 49ers to build a new stadium down there. Now that Al is dead, the Raiders may well agree to be co-tenants in that new suburban stadium. When he was alive, it was a non-starter for the Raiders, apparently.

The SF baseball stadium was completely privately funded -- no taxpayer dollars involved at all. That's partially why the Giants don't have one of the highest payrolls in baseball -- they need to make about $20M in payments on the stadium each year.