For the last several years, I’ve dusted off my vintage Oakland Raiders fleece-lined warm-up jacket at the start of the NFL season, and then retired it back into the closet at midseason. Call me a fair-weather fan, I don’t care. I’m from Oakland, I’ll stack my Raiders loyalty against anybody. But I’m not going to walk around in public emblazoned with a team that has sucked for years.
Even though the Raiders have been perennial losers, people always react favorably to my old jacket: the silver and black, with the no-nonsense player/pirate staring you in the face. There’s enough storied history around the franchise to warrant respect. But that respect is all retrospective. The Raiders have been crummy for longer than some young football fans have been following the game. Since the 2020 move to Las Vegas, arguably the finest facility in the league, they’ve become, as NFL analyst Colin Cowherd puts it, “unwatchable.”
Now, with the 2024-25 season in the books, the Chiefs and Eagles headed to Super Bowl LIX, and former Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll hired by the Vegas Raiders, I pause to reflect on a home-town team’s long journey into mediocrity.
I was watching in our living room two miles from the Oakland Coliseum, when they squared off against and got shellacked by the Green Bay Packers in what is now referred to as Super Bowl II (1968). The first Raiders game I attended was against the Minnesota Vikings, quarterbacked by Fran Tarkington. We won. I was watching from our back bedroom when Pittsburgh Steelers fullback Franco Harris scooped up the “immaculate reception.” I was in attendance on that solemn afternoon in 1974 when the Steelers brutally halted my team’s Super Bowl quest in Oakland. Though the move to Los Angeles wasn’t popular in our neighborhood, I nonetheless cheered when the Raiders swept past the Seattle Seahawks (who were once in the AFC West) in the 1983 AFC Championship and went on to win Super Bowl XVIII.
The last Raiders Super Bowl was in 2002. Since then, they’ve been to the playoffs twice, in 2016 and 2021, losing both times in the Wild Card round. The team was in playoff contention in 2016, with the best record since the ’02 Super Bowl season, but the bid was scuttled when adept quarterback Derek Carr suffered a broken leg in a meaningless second-to-last regular season game. Coach Jon Gruden’s inglorious resignation in 2021 squelched hopes for a revitalized team.
Those hopes come alive again as Carroll prepares for his new assignment. Carroll was often the nemesis of the San Francisco 49ers, a team that until this year has given Bay Area fans a lot to cheer about. In Oakland and San Francisco, Carroll has typically been on the other side of the ball from our interests; it’ll feel odd to root for him in Vegas, but such are the changing fortunes for fans, players, coaches, and franchises in the NFL.
Welcome Coach Carroll, and let me say, “Just win, baby!” I want to free my Raiders jacket from the closet.