After 22 years in Oakland, the Raiders packed up and moved south. They arrived in their new home with a proud tradition of excellence, but also seeming on the downswing. After winning the Super Bowl in 1980, the franchise went 7-9 in 1981, ending a string of sixteen consecutive winning seasons. The 1982 Los Angeles […]
The 1985 Los Angeles Raiders produced the league’s MVP and looked primed to make a run and at least get to the Super Bowl. Then some inopportune mistakes undid it all and marked the practical end of the Tom Flores era in franchise history.
The 1984 Los Angeles Raiders were coming off a Super Bowl win and for a half-season it looked like they might pull off a repeat. But they were in a tough division and slipped to a wild-card, then to a quick playoff exit. GREAT 1980s SPORTS MOMENTSStart reading today. Marcus Allen had electrified the nation with […]
The Oakland Raiders were a regular part of the NFL elite, winning the Super Bowl in 1976 with John Madden at coach and Ken Stabler at quarterback. But they missed the playoffs in 1978, Madden’s final year, and again in 1979 under new coach Tom Flores. The 1980 Oakland Raiders made a major change, trading away Stabler, and they made an improbable run all the way back to the top of the NFL.
No team had ever won four postseason games prior to the 1980 NFL season, although was just the third year of the wild-card round, so the opportunities to do so had been pretty limited. It was the 1980 Oakland Raiders that were the first team to do what is now fairly common, as they took the long path to a Super Bowl win.
The 2002 Oakland Raiders were hoping for some redemption. They’d won the AFC West in 2001 before suffering a controversial loss in the divisional playoffs against the New England Patriots. Playing in a Saturday night blizzard in Foxboro, the Raiders led by three late in the game when Tom Brady appeared to fumble on a sack with Oakland recovering. Upon replay, the officials ruled Brady’s arm had been moving forward.
Madden’s Raiders saw their season stop in the AFC Championship Game in 1970. They lost the “Immaculate Reception” play in the divisional round in Pittsburgh in 1972. Then came three straight AFC Championship Game losses from 1973-75, the last two to the Steelers who were en route to Super Bowl wins. Even in the relatively calmer media climate of the 1970s, the “can’t win the big one” tag was being hung on Madden and quarterback Ken Stabler. One can only imagine how intense the media shouting would be toda