Davis Gives State Of Raiders Address Brash Owner Lectures Bay Area Media, Takes Shots At Nfl, Arch-Rival 49ers
Looking like a middle-aged Elvis Presley and sounding like a capitalist version of Fidel Castro, Al Davis used the Raiders’ storied history to explain his team’s proposed return to Oakland.
Combative at times and effusive at others, Davis used a crowded news conference Thursday to attack his perceived enemies, cajole his fans and justify his status as the NFL’s resident maverick.
He got in swipes at the NFL, which will meet in Chicago next week to discuss the proposed move, and at the San Francisco 49ers, who Davis implied are trying to block his return from Los Angeles.
Davis, who defied the NFL in 1982 by abandoning Oakland for Los Angeles, compared 49ers president Carmen Policy - who has suggested the 49ers will be due territorial reparations from the Raiders - to Don Quixote tilting at windmills.
“I understand what Carmen’s doing and I understand they don’t want us here,” Davis said. “Maybe he gets a bonus out of it. I don’t blame him for trying. But I’ve been through this before and I don’t remember paying any money.”
Davis said the Raiders and 49ers will be “vicious competitors.”
“We’re moving to compete with them, and that’s the essence of the American way,” he said. “We still live under the antitrust laws of the United States, and that’s the essence of competition.”
In a rambling 30-minute speech that preceded reporters’ questions, Davis waved a newspaper from 1990 - when he flirted with a return to Oakland - that quoted Policy as saying there was little basis for reparations.
His speech had the touch of an American politician and the flavor of a Castro diatribe, as he recounted his career with the Raiders and twice read a 1990 newspaper account in which 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo declared, “Al Davis is a very brilliant man.”
Davis, his trademark pompadour a bit thinner than when he left Oakland 13 years ago, wore a white satin jacket with a black Raiders patch. He fidgeted with a diamondencrusted Super Bowl ring on his left hand.
He spoke of coming to Oakland in 1963, when he took over the struggling Raiders of the American Football League. And of returning to the Raiders in 1967 after a short stint as AFL commissioner.
And, of course, he repeatedly talked of the “will to win” that has led the Raiders to three Super Bowl titles and the top winning percentage among American professional teams in the last three decades.
At times, his Brooklyn accent came through. At others, especially when he spoke of former players and past successes, he seemed to lapse into a southern drawl.
Flanked by former players including Daryle Lamonica, Gene Upshaw and Jim Otto and current Raiders Don Mosebar, Nolan Harrison and Steve Wisniewski, he virtually dared the NFL to try to stop his return.