Heres something on Raiders and Niners
Raiders', 49ers' situations should be a concern to Goodell, NFL
By Glenn Dickey
March 10, 2008
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has done a good job of dealing with the out-of-control players who have been a serious blemish on the league’s reputation. Now, he faces another challenge with two owners in the San Francisco Bay Area who are bringing once-proud franchises, the 49ers and Oakland Raiders, to their knees.
Al Davis is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and deservedly so, but his career with the Raiders can be divided into two nearly equal but hugely contrasting eras.
From 1963 through 1985, Davis put together a team that had the highest winning percentage in American professional sports and played in four Super Bowls, winning the last three they were in.
But from 1986 through the 2007 season, Davis’ Raiders are 27 games below .500 in regular-season play and have been to just one Super Bowl, being routed by the Buccaneers in XXXVII. And it’s getting worse. In the five years since that Super Bowl, the Raiders are an NFL-worst 19-61.
Davis always has been in control of the Raiders, but in the good years, he usually had somebody with contrarian ideas to whom he’d listen. In the early days, for instance, Ron Wolf pushed him to draft Ken Stabler. As recently as 1999, then-head coach Jon Gruden was able to persuade Davis to release Jeff George and sign Rich Gannon. With Gannon at quarterback, the Raiders got to their last Super Bowl.
Davis “traded” Gruden to Tampa Bay, in exchange for draft picks and money. As coach of the Bucs, Gruden’s strategy destroyed the Raiders in the Super Bowl, a resounding 48-21 win for the Bucs. That started a decline for the Raiders, as they crashed to 4-12 in the 2003 season.
There is nobody left in the Raiders’ organization who will challenge Davis as Wolf and Gruden did. Employees know that if Davis asks for their opinions, he only listens if they agree with him. One employee who tired of that routine asked Davis, “Do you really want my opinion, or do you just want me to agree with yours?” Davis snarled at him, “Get out of here,” which pretty much answered that question.
Lately, Davis’ actions have gone from bad to totally irrational, as in his attempt to get head coach Lane Kiffin to sign a resignation letter. Had he done so, Kiffin would have forfeited the $4 million he’s owed over the next two years. Kiffin declined to sign it. Surprise.
Kiffin was only 31 when he was hired to coach the Raiders last spring. He had never been a head coach before, so he was learning on the job. Overall, he did a good job and he seemed on his way to changing the losing atmosphere surrounding the Raiders.
Nobody knows exactly what will happen now, but it won’t be good. If Kiffin stays, his authority with the players will be seriously undermined. If he leaves, who would Davis get to replace him? A coach would have to be suicidal to go to Oakland.
The only way for this situation to improve is for Goodell to appoint a good football man to step in and take operating control of the Raiders. There is precedent for this in baseball, where Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott twice was removed from active control in the 1990s.
Of course, Davis would sue, but Oakland Athletics owner Charlie Finley also sued baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn when Kuhn negated Finley’s sale of star players in the late ’70s. Finley lost, as a federal court judge ruled in 1978 that a commissioner had the right to take action to protect the best interests of his sport. Removing Davis from control of the Raiders would certainly fit that description.
With the 49ers, the problem is not just operational control — though owner John York has made enough bad decisions that the 49ers are only 25-55 over the past five years — but also with the effort to build a new stadium. York’s people announced last year that they had a plan to build a new stadium in Santa Clara, in Great America’s parking lot. Amazingly, they had not even asked anybody from Great America about it! When Great America said, “No way,” the 49ers moved their proposed site to another parking lot, adjacent to their practice facility.
The 49ers have been trying to get Santa Clara to provide them with more than $200 million to build the stadium. Good luck with that. The last Bay Area team to try to get public money for a new stadium was the Giants, who lost four elections in San Francisco, San Jose and Santa Clara. The 49ers also reportedly plan to use PSLs (personal seat licenses) as part of their financing plan, though they’re having trouble now selling season tickets without PSLs attached.
And speaking of season tickets, they’ve just raised ticket prices, coming off a season that they started talking playoffs and ended at 5-11. This is truly The Gang That Can’t Shoot Straight.
Meanwhile, San Francisco has come up with its own plan for the Hunters Point area. As part of an overall urban renewal area, room for a bay-front stadium would be included. Lennar Corp., which is handling the project, would put up $100 million to help finance a stadium project, according to former 49ers president Carmen Policy, who is working for San Francisco on the project.
If this proposal is approved by San Francisco voters on the June 3 ballot, Policy plans to take it to the commissioner and lobby for it. Goodell certainly would listen because Policy is known as a dealmaker — and York has the reputation of being a bumbler. Policy could put a specific plan on the table; York has only a pie-in-the-sky proposal to present.
Moving against owners is never as easy for a commissioner as moving against players is, but what Goodell does with the messy Raiders and 49ers situations will be an important factor in defining his reign.
Your move, commissioner.
Glenn Dickey has been covering pro football since 1967 and now has his own Web site,
www.GlennDickey.com. E-mail him at
[email protected].
