Filling the Black Hole

(this has been building in me for a while, so pull up a chair, it’s a long one...)

"There's a new sheriff in town… and his name is Reggie Hammond."

Ok, in this case it’s Reggie McKenzie.

But in less than 48 Hours, the Raiders new General Manager.

The Raiders FIRST General Manager.

Has this team closer to a Super Bowl than we have been since Clinton was President.

I realize that just using the words RAIDERS and SUPER BOWL in the same blog can get me arrested.

But as a diehard Raiders fan, I haven’t been this excited about the Silver and Black in many years.

Now let me take a giant step backwards.

Which is where this organization has been headed for the last decade.

Al Davis was a GREAT leader.

GREAT.

WAS.

Past tense.

I’m not suggesting that the game passed him by.

I don’t believe that for a minute.

What I do believe is that having 82-year dictator single-handedly running anything is a bad thing.

Are you listening North Korea?

Are you listening Penn State?

Al Davis cared more about the Raiders than any human being.

There is no disputing that.

But that doesn’t mean he always made the right decisions.

When Mr. Davis hired Hue Jackson as the Head Coach last year, I guarantee he felt he was making the right decision.

Just like he did when he hired Tom Cable.

And Lane Kiffin.

And Art Shell... again.

And Norval Turner.

(I love it that he called him Norval.)

And Bill Callahan.

Six coaches in 10 years.

A barista at Starbucks has better job security than that.

But one-by-one, the honeymoon ended.

And so did their job.

Unfortunately Mr. Davis is no longer with us.

And now little Mr. Davis, his son Mark, is running the team.

This week Mini Davis made his first real decision as the new man in town.

And it was a great decision.

He hired a General Manager.

To run the team.

He hired a football man to make football decisions.

What a concept.

He hired Reggie McKenzie.

A former Raiders player, who has been working in the Green Bay Packers front office for 18 years.

The Green Bay Packers.

You may have heard of them.

Before the ink was dry on Reggie’s contract.

Rumors started swirling that the new sheriff wasn’t such a big fan of coach Hue Jackson.

Join the club.

Today it became official.

Hue Jackson fired.

After one year.

One mediocre, underachieving, frustrating, awful year.

Now I must say, as someone who has been “fired” twice.

In the last few years.

That’s not a word I celebrate.

I didn’t understand the word divorce.

Until I got married.

I didn’t understand the word death.

Until my father died.

And I definitely had no concept of the word fired.

Until it happened it to me.

Losing a job is never a good thing.

But when it comes to public figures, and all the money they usually make.

Somehow it seems easier to say.

The good news here is that Hue Jackson will get another job.

Probably soon.

Probably with a team that will face the Raiders.

Hue's sudden dismissal has nothing to do with the fact that he likes the weekly manicure and pedicure.

I'm good with that.

The bottom line is he was the wrong guy.

At the wrong time.

To take this team to another level.

Sure, that’s easy to say now.

After choking away the division.

After losing a must-win game at home to a San Diego team that had nothing to play for.

After blowing a 13-point lead to a Detroit team, at home, with under five minutes left.

After not showing up in Miami for a game with the hapless Dolphins.

After losing back-to-back games at home to the pathetic Chiefs and the Tebow-thetic Broncos.

But the truth here is that I knew Hue Jackson was the wrong man for the job all the way back in Week 3.

When we won.

I remember the camera cutting to a shot of Jackson late in the game.

On the sideline.

As the Jets were driving for a score.

Jackson was waving his arms in the air like he was auditioning for Will Ferrell’s cheerleading character on SNL.

Ok, the first time I saw the shot, I did think...

“How cool.  The coach is pumping up the crowd.”

But moments later, when he was doing it again.

And again.

I was like... 

“Dude, you are the coach.  Not a Raiderette.”

“COACH SOMETHING.”

By some unlikely Raider luck, we actually won that game.

But over the next four months we all got a taste of Jackson’s overinflated character.

And overflowing ego.

Overshadowing any good that he had done.

He came in saying that he wanted to build a bully.

Good role model.

Well his team responded.

By becoming the most penalized team in NFL history.

HIS-TOR-Y.

Most penalties in a season.

Ever.

Most penalty yards in a season.

Ever.

The bully mentality.

Be careful what you wish for.

If you believe penalties are a good thing, you didn’t watch the BCS Championship game last night.

Did you see Nick Saban’s face turn crimson-red when his Alabama team got its first penalty of the game?

Late in the fourth quarter.

Up 21-0.

I thought he was going to kill someone.

Hue Jackson’s ego kicked in again at the NFL trade deadline.

With Mr. Davis just laid to rest.

Jackson was calling all the shots in Oakland.

And he decided that overpaying for a 31-year-old semi-retired quarterback was the right move to make.

Now I must say, I was very impressed with Carson Palmer.

At times.

And I really don’t hate that trade.

And I am excited about this quarterback of the past being our quarterback of the future.

But it’s amazing that Jackson didn’t tear his ACL by making that knee-jerk trade.

We didn’t need to do it.

And we we certainly didn’t need to mortgage the future for a guy who was spending his days walking on the beach.

But we did.

Maybe Jackson thought he was starring in the remake of Heaven Can Wait.

Palmer tried to make the best of it.

But in the end, the Raiders fell short.

Not Hue Jackson.

The Raiders.

If you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe him.

These were his words immediately after we lost that season-ending home game to the Chargers.

“I’m pissed at my team.”

“I’m pissed at my team because when you have those kind of opportunities, you’ve got to do it and we didn’t do it.”

“I’m not making no more excuses for nobody.”

Aside from a personal foul for flubbing the english language -- and who am I to talk.

"Not making no more excuses for nobody."

Really?

YOU ARE THE COACH.

YOU ARE THE LEADER.

YOU ARE THE BOSS.

YOU ARE WE.

Jackson capped off his news conference with a statement that finally made some sense.

And proved to be quick prophetic.

“I know one thing, this team needs an attitude adjustment.”

Now you’re onto something Hue.

I think we just got one.

Rise up Raider Nation.

Committed to Excellence

The NFL lost a legend today.

The Oakland Raiders lost an owner.

I lost a piece of my life.

Al Davis, who led the Raiders through good.

And into bad.

Passed away this morning.

I’m not sure exactly when my dad first met Al Davis.

But they first worked together in 1966 when Mr. Davis was the Commissioner of the AFL.

Over the years they remained close friends.

And when the Raiders moved to Los Angeles in 1982, Davis brought my dad in to work for the team.

That was quite the move for my dad.

As he was working for the New York Yankees at the time.

Steinbrenner to Davis.

Frying Pan to Fryer.

Both owners had quite a bit in common.

They both LOVED winning.

Both HATED losing.

And both were born on the 4th of July.

One year apart.

Davis was older.

There was a lot that people thought they knew about these two men.

But my dad lived it.

And I think he genuinely loved almost every minute of it.

He certainly loved being part of a World Series team in 1981.

And a Super Bowl team in 1983.

I have the rings to prove it.

But neither one of those moments would’ve happened without the owner.

What made Al Davis different is that he was not just the man in charge of the team.

He was the man in charge.

Off the field and on it.

At the age of 33, the Raiders hired Davis to become their head coach and general manager.

With that, he became the youngest person in professional football history to hold those two positions.

Now there are plenty of bosses, in every business, who think they know everything.

But Al did.

He became the principal owner of the Raiders in 1972 and held that position.

Until 7:44 this morning.

Under Davis, the team won three Super Bowls.

That’s the stuff the people know.

Or the stuff you can read at wikipedia.

But thanks to my dad, I was brought into a world of Al Davis that most people never knew.

Some of it Raiders related.

Some not.

For example, when the Raiders moved to LA, they put a bunch of posters on the side of city buses.

The posters had catch phrases.

Like “Commitment to Excellence.”

Or “Pride and Poise.”

Or something catchy like that.

But no phone number.

When my dad asked his boss why that was he said, “if we win they will find us.”

I guess it was his version of “if you build it, he will come.”

Or a pre-cursor to “just win baby.”

The words that Davis uttered when we won our last Super Bowl in 1984.

The moniker that will be Davis’ legacy.

Al Davis was a very public figure, but he lived a plenty private life too.

One thing people may not know about the Raiders owner is that he was Jewish.

Like my dad.

Maybe that’s why they got along so well.

I’m sure Al did his fair share of praying in private.

But when it came to the holiest of the Jewish High Holidays, he did his praying with us.

At a tiny orthodox synagogue in the heart of LA’s most Jewish neighborhood.

A black town car would pull up to the front of the temple at the beginning of the service.

And a man would come out of the back seat and strut into the building.

That man was Al Davis.

Inside the building there were no more than 200 people. 

More than half of which were men.

Old Jewish men.

These old Jewish men had no idea who Al Davis was.

No idea who the Raiders were.

And no idea what they were missing.

But they knew he was special. 

They just didn’t know how special.

He would always sit in the front row.

Do his own praying.

Presumably for a Raiders win.

Shake a few hands.

And get back in his town car.

Until the next holiday.

There is certainly a hidden irony here for me that the passing of Al Davis came on October 8, 2011.

The same day as Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement.

The holiest day of the Jewish year.

I’m not sure exactly how religious Al Davis was.

But there is no doubt he was looking for any advantage he could get.

I always knew he respected my dad.

But I didn’t know just how much until the early morning of June 30, 2002.

That’s when I picked up the phone and called Mr. Davis at home.

I informed him that my dad died.

Suddenly.

From a massive heart attack.

The only thing I could hear on the other end of the line was crying.

“No. No. No.”

It’s a moment I will never forget.

Unfortunately I had to share this terrible news with many people.

But nobody reacted the way that Al Davis did.

We spoke for what felt like forever.

Even though it was probably closer to ten minutes.

And he ended by saying if there is anything you need, let me know.

It was a nice offer, but I didn’t expect it to go anywhere.

I was wrong.

A few weeks later I got a call from a high ranking person in the Raiders organization.

He said they wanted to talk to me about a job.

I wasn’t sure what kind of job they were talking about.

But they flew me up to Oakland and interviewed me.

Even after the interview, I still wasn’t sure what kind of job they were talking about.

In hindsight, I’m not sure there really was a job.

But Mr. Davis was just trying to do whatever he could.

He wasn’t done there. 

There was an amazing memorial service for my dad, attended by more than 500 people.

Including Mr. Davis.

Paid for by Mr. Davis.

All of it.

I’m not sure he wanted anybody to know that.

So I didn’t say anything.

Until now.

I hope that’s ok.

Mr. Davis spoke at the service and shared stories about my dad (and me) that entertained the crowd.

And eased the pain of our loss.

That was the last day that Mr. Davis and I spoke.

I still watch every Raiders game.

Religiously.

And I have passed on my undying love for the Raiders to my son.

Just as Al Davis is passing on the ownership of the Raiders to his son.

RIP Mr. Davis.