by Mike Siani
THAT INCREDIBLE 1976 SEASON AND SUPER BOWL XI
THE MYSTIQUE BEHIND the Raiders organization was, of course, Al Davis. But before the 1976 season, Oakland had never won when it mattered most.
Between 1968 and 1975, the Raiders played in six AFL/AFC Championship games and lost all six—each time to the eventual Super Bowl Champions.
Kenny Stabler talks about the frustration of not winning the big one.
“When you get as close as we had gotten and you’re still not able to get it done, and then to get so close time and time again, the frustration becomes insurmountable.
“Tough guys are tough guys on the field, but football players are no different than anybody else. You really feel bad when you lose. Maybe guys have too much pride or have an image of being too tough to cry outwardly, but I’ve seen guys break down because of the hurt of not winning and I’ve been one of them. We had been bridesmaids far too many times.”
While the Raiders could not get past the championship game, the Pittsburgh Steelers spent much of the ’70s raising the Lombardi trophy.
Pittsburgh’s victories were usually controversial; but that still spelled trouble for head coach John Madden. Since his hiring in 1969, Madden had won more games than any NFL coach but had failed in taking his team to a Super Bowl. Here he repeats what Chuck Noll had said.
“You did hear that Madden couldn’t win the big one. But I used to say, ‘Hey, before the game, tell me when there’s a little one.’
“We won a lot of big games, a lot of regular season games, a lot of big games to get to playoffs, and a lot of playoff games.”
When the Raiders ended Miami’s two-year reign as World Champions in the “Sea of Hands” game, we did it for our coach.
After the win, Villapiano was so happy that he gave Madden the game ball.
“When we beat the Dolphins, I went right to the sidelines and gave John that football because he deserved it.
“It bothered me if I read something about myself but it bothered me even more if I read something about John. He was our man. We as players loved him and you had to watch John operate. On the sidelines he was a maniac—and that was beautiful. But during the week the Xs and Os had to be perfect. He prepared us so well and when we lost it wasn’t John Madden’s fault—I guarantee it.”
“I don’t believe in that thing that eighteen men can’t win the big one,” said Madden. “We have been in playoff games, we’ve been in championship games, but for some reason, we still hadn’t won it all.
“I was really frustrated because I knew we were good. I knew we were close. We never lost to a bad team. We lost to some of the greatest teams in the history of the NFL. The worst thing you could do is get into the playoffs, lose a championship game, and panic. ’Cause all we did was maybe need a first down here, a call here, and we would have been there. The guys who have to be frustrated are the guys who only won two games all year.”
The 1975 season ended with another crushing defeat. Once again, the Raiders lost the AFC Championship to the Steelers.
“We were a great team that year,” said Villapiano. When we lost to the Steelers, I just couldn’t believe it. Then I started actually getting a little spooked.”
“There was a lot of hard hitting by both sides,” said Madden. “I think it was a very emotional game and there was a hell of a lot of meaning to this game as you know. The winner goes to the Super Bowl and the loser goes home.”
Losing was not an option at this point. The Raiders needed to win it all in 1976, or history would remember them as a team that couldn’t win the big one.
If the Raiders were ever going to become champions, they were going to have to beat the Steelers. In the first game of the 1976 season, with the opener against the Steelers, Pittsburgh led by two touchdowns with five minutes remaining.
“They came right at us and got ahead of us, but we did have one of Kenny Stabler’s great comeback games,” said Villapiano. “We took them down. Kenny to Casper, Kenny to Branch—once we got going we could score quickly. Give Kenny an inch, he’ll take a yard.”
In true Raiders fashion, Oakland’s defense ran all over Bradshaw and his Steelers. Final score: Oakland 31, Pittsburgh 28.
Oakland’s victory was overshadowed by an escalating controversy. In the 1975 AFC Championship, George Atkinson had knocked Lynn Swann out of the game. In the season opener, Oakland’s hard-hitting safety had done it again, and Pittsburgh’s coach launched a media offensive.
“Chuck Noll said that we were the criminal element of the NFL, but that was the way that those guys played,” said Stabler.
He continued: “George clubbed with a forearm and knocked him out of the game. Maybe a little outside of the rules, but that was George’s way of setting the tone for the game.”
“When we played Pittsburgh it was a physical game,” said Madden. “Those things are going to happen. It wasn’t only George Atkinson and Lynn Swann.”
“Pittsburgh was just like us—very tough and very intimidating,” said Stabler. “I’ve seen Joe Greene kick guys and stomp on guys. He’s a Hall of Fame player. I’ve seen Mel Blount grab Cliff Branch and pick him up and shake him like a rag doll and dump him on his head. Our team played within the rules. We were just so physical that a lot of people always accused you of these things because they couldn’t beat you.”
As the Swann incident magnified, the Raiders’ reputation as outlaws and the legend of Atkinson only grew. If the Raiders were above the law, it was because Madden refused to lay down one. Just ask Villapiano.
“We had no rules. Just show up and play your hardest. John would preach that and we would do it.”
Madden saw his players’ style of play as creative.
“These are the greatest athletes in the world. They are like artists, and if you take their creativity away from them by making them robotic, then they are going to play like robots. But if you give them individuality and some freedom then they can be and play the way they are.”
In the opening weeks of the 1976 season, the Raiders mauled their competition. Oakland tallied three consecutive victories, but domination of the regular season, which was a Raiders tradition, would prove nothing as New England manhandled the Raiders 48–17 in their worst defeat since 1963.
“We got the hell kicked out of us,” said Stabler. “Looking back on it, to go up there and get thumped the way we did. Maybe it’s a little bit of a wake-up call; maybe it’s a little bit of a blessing in disguise. Maybe you’re not quite as good as you think you are.”
According to Madden, “It was just one of those things.”
But that would be the final loss the Raiders would face the rest of the season. Oakland’s vertical passing game was devastating, and no amount of penalties could stop the Raiders’ march to the top of the NFL . . . but that doesn’t mean they didn’t try.
“The referees got a pat on the back if they could throw more flags on us than the other team,” said Villapiano. “Maybe they were coached to do it. Don Shula at that time was in charge of the Competition Committee and the lily-white Miami Dolphins were as nasty as anyone else, but they never got penalties called on them. It was like ‘let’s get these Raiders out of here and make everyone else’s lives easier.’”
“The League just didn’t like the Raiders,” said Stabler. “It was speculated that a lot of people didn’t like Al, they didn’t like John, and they didn’t like our players. They could throw as many penalties as they want, as long as you win, it’s no big deal.”
In week seven, when the Raiders hosted the Green Bay Packers in late October, they were flagged thirteen times and accumulated more penalty yards than rushing yards (115 rushing yards to 119 penalty yards).* But the Snake threw three touchdowns in nine minutes to beat the Packers, 18–14.
“Ever since the Atkinson and Tatum incidents, the officials had been watching the game closer and were calling more penalties than ever before,” said Otis Sistrunk. “Any little thing that a guy did, they would call a
penalty.”
But nobody played the game quite like Ken Stabler. The Snake succeeded “Broadway” Joe Namath at Alabama and learned from the master how to score on and off the field.
“Everybody’s metabolism is different,” said Stabler. “Some people need eight hours, some people need three hours. I don’t really need an awful lot of sleep. Sometimes I would read the game plan by the light of the jukebox. How many hours do you need to go play three hours?”
“When the going was easy, Snake would get bored,” said Madden. “When the going was tough, he was ready to play. He would be better in the fourth quarter if it was a tight game and we were behind. If we were ahead by twenty or thirty points, he could call a play in the huddle and by the time he got to the line of scrimmage, he would forget what he called.”
Despite Stabler’s short attention span, Madden still delegated the play calling to Snake.
“John basically pitched the playbook to me and told me to go in. It made me a better player to have that responsibility. What comes out of your mouth is going to dictate a lot of success.”
Madden enjoyed the fact that his players became involved in the play calling.
“I liked it when the players were in the huddle and they said, ‘OK, this is what we want to do. This is a play we’re calling.’ Rather than a play being sent in and saying, ‘Hey, this is what they want us to run.’ When you put the word they on it then you separate it as to say, ‘We’re not responsible for this.’ When you put the word we on it, then we are all in it together.”
Fred Biletnikoff often had his number called in Stabler’s huddle, even though his nerves couldn’t stomach the pregame anticipation.
“All the time he would be smoking a cigarette,” said Stabler. “He was a two-pack-a-day guy since he was ten years old. And he would push his helmet back on his head and go into the john and throw up for twenty minutes in there. And then go to the edge of the tunnel and take one last drag of his cigarette, flick it, and pull his facemask down and go make the Hall of Fame.”
Stabler’s other wide receiver, Cliff Branch, was anything but nervous.
“When he was a young player, he would maybe in the third quarter tell me, ‘Hey, Coach, I can beat my guy deep,’” said Madden. “After he’d played for five or six years and the National Anthem would just finish, he would say, ‘Hey Coach, I can beat my guy deep.’ I said, ‘Cliff, we haven’t even played a down yet. How do you know who your guy is?’
After a 7–1 start, everyone was pulling for the Raiders.
In Chicago, Stabler was sidelined with a concussion. But the Snake came off the bench to knock out the Bears with a pair of bombs.
The winds of fate were finally blowing in the Raiders’ direction. Final score: Raiders 28, Bears 27.
“Because of the Bears missing a field goal and the wind and weather conditions playing in our favor that day, we were lucky to get out of there [with a win],” said Stabler. “I don’t think you ever felt that this was our year because we caught a break in Chicago; no, we needed to catch a break in Pittsburgh!”
Since the mid-1960s, the Oakland Raiders had won more games than any other organization, and the hallmarks of Raiders football had become legendary: physical, dominant blocking, the vertical passing game, and a relentless assault on the quarterback. But the greatness of the Raiders came from their attitude. Al Davis once said, “I will do anything to win.” And he wanted players who would win at any and all costs.
“The type of player that Al brought in had that type of attitude,” said Stabler. “We wanted to be tough and we enjoyed being disliked. I think half our team was on a work-release program just to play.”
The media called the Raiders a lot of names, but whatever they called Oakland, the team belonged to Madden.
“People said we had renegades, but they were my renegades. I didn’t think they were renegades. If that’s the way they are going to portray you, I just figure you should just take it. If that’s what they want to say that we are, and we’re really not, then we’ll be it.”
“As they say, ‘If the shoe fits . . .’ Oakland was a very tough, blue-collar city with a very tough blue-collar team. Al Davis was as tough as they come as far as owners go, John was definitely a blue-collar type of guy, our logo was a pirate, and our main color was black,” said Stabler.
“Nobody in the league was wearing black and flaunting black like our owner, Mr. Davis, and then on game day he would wear lily white,” said Villapiano.
Madden talked about a trick of the trade in terms of getting an “upper hand.”
“Any time you were playing a team with a dark jersey your protective hand or arm gear color would be dark. When we were playing a team with a white jersey, the protective hand or arm gear would be white so you couldn’t see them holding.”
The Raiders were always looking for an edge. Fred Biletnikoff had his Stickum and Phil Villapiano had his pads. Phil gives a much more comprehensive evaluation of how those pads were used.
“As I had mentioned before, our trainer George Anderson was an expert when it came to pads. Probably most of them were illegal, but what the hell. I could take my opponent down if I hit them just right. Right from the start it became my weapon of choice.
“After much experimentation, I began to call it ‘the rake’ and ‘the can opener.’ When you had them in the throat [raked them in] you could pop the helmet off and that would be the can opener. It was so fucking great!
“One time I hit O. J. Simpson perfectly, and they showed that tackle of me all year. Juice’s helmet went flying and he fell to his knees. I attribute that to our wonderful trainer who was definitely the master of illegal pads!
“Look at John Matuszak’s arms or Gene Upshaw’s arms—the pads on those arms were incredible! Look at Bob Brown’s thumb. He had a fake broken thumb for like seven years, but what he used to do is come up and deliver this blow into L. C. Greenwood’s stomach and he could drop Greenwood with one thumb. Amazing! Is that fucking great or what!”
By Week 11, Oakland had won seven straight games. They beat the Eagles in Philly 26–7 and clinched their fifth straight division crown.
To Madden, clinching the division wasn’t that big of a deal.
“When you clinch your division, it doesn’t mean anything. If you can’t win the big one, and there is only one big one—the Super Bowl. And if you can’t win that one, none of this other stuff means anything!”
The Raiders’ thirteenth game of the season meant a lot. Oakland’s 11–1 record guaranteed them home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, but the fate of the Steelers and Bengals would be determined on Monday Night Football.
“The scenario was like this,” said Villapiano. “We beat the Bengals, the Steelers are in and the Bengals are out. We lose to the Bengals, the Bengals are in and the Steelers are out.”
Madden describes the thinking of how to approach this “situation.”
“So the thinking was, ‘They don’t want to play Pittsburgh, they want to play Cincinnati, so they are going to go lose.’ That’s the worst thing you could say about someone [a team], that they lost on purpose. Just for the sake of the organization, just for the sake of football, just for the sake of what’s right. You gotta go win!”
The Raiders were definitely a collection of renegades, but while some might accuse them of cheating an opponent, they would never cheat the game.
Villapiano believed that no NFL team would ever lose on purpose.
“I couldn’t even think of an NFL team ever lying down—especially on Monday night—especially a team like the Bengals. We hated them, but then we hated everybody.
“We just kept pounding these guys. Coach wanted us to annihilate them and we did!”
After that Monday-night game, Madden was proud of his team.
“We knocked Cincinnati out of the playoffs and we put Pittsburgh in. That Monday-night game was the proudest game I ever coached in my life! I don’t know any other way to play, and thank goodness my p
layers didn’t either. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
Final score: Raiders 35, Bengals 20.
The Raiders entered the divisional playoffs against New England with a 13–1 record. The Pats were the only team who had beaten them, and when New England raced to a 21–10 lead, Oakland needed a miracle . . . and that miracle was Ken Stabler.
“Whatever that thing was, that focus, that concentration, Stabler could just step it up a notch when you needed it,” said Madden. “We needed it right now. Either do it and go on, or we’re done.”
“Kenny didn’t get the name Snake for nothing,” said Villapiano. “He was as cool as a cucumber. He wanted that ball. He knew he could do something. He just knew it.”
But Stabler’s final drive stalled on the New England 29-yard line.
“Third and eighteen,” said Stabler. “That’s a long way. Too many third and longs will make you sleep on your side of the bed. You’re gonna get knocked around.”
For years the big games had turned against the Raiders on big calls. But seconds from defeat, the silver and black were saved, ironically, by the men in black and white.
Pittsburgh’s nose tackle Ray “Sugar Bear” Hamilton hit Stabler in the head with a forearm just as he was releasing the ball. Madden was not happy about that.
“He said that he didn’t mean to, but he hit him in the head and they don’t allow that. Hamilton got the roughing the passer penalty he deserved.”
“I had looped to my right and had a clear shot at the left-handed Stabler,” said Sugar Bear Hamilton. “In an effort to change Stabler’s ball flight, I had his hands high. After Stabler released the ball, I hit him on the helmet. Back in 1976, that was not considered to be roughing the passer, but referee Ben Dreith threw a flag anyway, giving the Raiders a first down. They went on to score the winning touchdown with seconds left on the clock.”
That hit on Stabler made this one of the most controversial games in NFL history.
The Raiders capitalized on their second chance and stormed into their seventh AFL/AFC championship in the last nine years.
