April 6, 2022 • 47 mins
Host Andrea Kremer takes us back to 1989 when NFL Films Steve Sabol interviewed the Legend Al Davis. The Raiders owner discussed his philosophies on offense and defense and how Davis always wanted to know what the Raiders were about. Steve highlights the great pride Davis took in Bill Walsh's first job being with the Raiders. Davis was proud of the loyalty and code his organization had along with the fear and mystique his teams had on the field. The team looked for specific kind of players and often took chances that other teams wouldn't take. You'll also hear one of the most famous quotes in NFL Films history and the origin story for 'Just win, baby!'. Stay tuned for next week when Davis discusses his upbringing and what he wanted his legacy to be.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Tales from the Vault is a production of the NFL
in partnership with I Heart Radio. Welcome to NFL Films
Tales from the Vault. I'm your host, Hall of Fame
journalist Andrea Kramer. This is a weekly podcast featuring conversations
between the late President of NFL Films, Steve Sable, and
(00:26):
some of the greatest figures in NFL history. We've dug
into the vault to find original interviews, raw, unedited, and
now you get to hear them in their entirety for
the first time. Consider the show sort of like a
time capsule, and I'm your tour guide, providing context and
insight into some of these lost treasures as they like
(00:48):
to call them at NFL Films. Now, I don't want
to say that we've saved the best for last. It's
kind of like saying which your children deal like the most.
But this is such a fascinating interview that we felt
like we had to split it into two parts. So
today we head back to teen eight nine for part
one of Steve sables epic interview with the late owner
(01:10):
of the Raiders, Al Davis. Very simply, Al Davis was
one of the most impactful characters in the history of
(01:32):
the National Football League. He's the only executive in NFL
history to be an assistant coach, head coach, general manager, commissioner,
and of course team owner. Remember when he was commissioner
of the a f L, he was mainly responsible for
the merger between the NFL and the a f L.
He had a profound impact on this league. Of course,
(01:56):
there were some downsides to that too. As Raiders owner,
he feuded with NFL Commissioner Pete Roselle and even sued
the league. And one he was controversial. He was a
lightning rod. But you know what, any chance that Steve
Sable had to sit down with Al Davis, he grabbed it.
And just a little alert here this interview features one
(02:17):
of the most memorable lines in the history of NFL films,
and I will come back to see if you have
figured it out. By the way, not only was Davis
an incredibly eloquent speaker, but you have to love the
southern tinged Brooklyn accent that was so unique to Al Davis.
So the following interview took place in the year that
(02:40):
Davis became the first owner to hire a black head coach.
In our shell but make no mistake, this was just
the third of his first if you will, after hiring
the first Latino head coach in Tom Flory's and of course,
the first female chief executive in Amy Trusk. And can
we note that this was before the league had to
(03:01):
mandate that minorities had to be interviewed or hired. Al
Davis was always a trailblazer and had very specific ideas
about how the game should be played and what kind
of players should be donning the silver and black. Steve
and I'll talk about quarterbacks. There's Darryl Amonica, the Mad Bomber,
the Snake, Kenny Stabler, George Blanda, and Jim Plunkett. Of course,
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they also have to touch on safety Jack Tatum and
pretty much any famous Raider from the sixties, seventies and eighties,
including of course the great late John Madden. So let's
go to the vault for Steve Sable and Al Davis.
Let's just talk about your theory of offensive football and
the what you've done is really clear. You start with
(03:45):
a basic premise and then you can go off in
any directions. Remember I can can edit this and no, no, sure, okay,
I just want to go now to explain basically and
then maybe expand your theory of offensive and I wen
go to defense a little bit, passa pumping just right now,
take it off and just just that if you were
gonna sit here and talk to me about we'll right
(04:08):
go ahead. Well from day one, uh, when I came
here in nineteen sixty three, and I had had the
advantage from early nineteen sixty through nineteen sixty two to
be with Sid Gilman at San Diego. But I had
certain philosophies my own that had to be come part
of whatever I was to do. And that was number one,
(04:29):
what I call the vertical game. We were going to
stretch the field vertically. When we came out of the huddle.
We weren't looking for first downs. We didn't want to
move the chains. We wanted touchdowns. We wanted the big play,
the quick strike. And it's number one to say you
want to do that. It's number two to say that
you have the players to do it, but it's number
(04:49):
three to do it to do it on first down
of any football game. For that defense that you're playing against,
for those cornerbacks who play out there on the corners,
to know that the rates that are coming at you.
They're coming at you on top, and they've got the
speed to do it, and they will do it. It's
like having the bomb and being willing to drop it.
And uh so that was the foremost thing. Number Two.
(05:11):
I wanted power, big people. Not a diversification of a
running attack, but a power running attack. To develop toughness,
to develop physicalness. And then with the strike of the
big play the vertical game. That was rate of football.
Uh the adage that goes around in professional football, and
I hear everyone said, take what they give you, take
(05:32):
what they give you. They tell quarterbacks, read the defense,
hit the open man. Well, that all sounds good to everybody,
but I always want the other way. We're gonna take
what we want. That no design or no location of
defensive people on a blackboard, or just because they lined
up out there will stop us from taking what we want.
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They have to prove to us that they can stop
us on the field. What about the one who has
delivered the bomb? What were you looking for in terms
of a court. Well, I think one great interesting is
to sistic about the Raiders is that we have played
in the Super Bowl. We're the only team in professional
football in the sixties, the seventies, and the eighties, and
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in each decade a different quarterback has led us to
the Super Bowl. In the sixties it was the Lamonica
and the great George Blanda. In the seventies it was
a Snake Stable, and in the eighties it was Jim Plunkett.
So I think that shows a little bit that the
system which we've consistently used, we haven't changed much. We
(06:37):
haven't deviated much. The players have changed, but they're all
similar players to play the same positions that we started
with with the same concept, but the quarterbacks have changed.
And Uh Lamonica obviously was a great vertical throw, a
great deep throw. Uh Blanda was probably the greatest clutch
player to ever played professional football. Stable was the most
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accurate passer of his time and might not have had
as great a deep ball as we like, but was
so accurate and could move the chains that we adjusted
a little bit to him. But there were a couple
of years where he and Branch were unstoppable. And then
of course you come to Plunket, who was just a
tremendously great vertical throw, a big play throw, not a
(07:20):
high percentage passing of all the passes I've named to you,
the only one who was a high percentage passing was Stable. Kenny.
We've never been greatly concerned about percentage throwing. We've been
concerned about two things, no interceptions and touchdowns. We're not
interested in the throws. Although Stable was a great percentage
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throw when Stabler, an interesting thing about him is that
he to to the fan, the perception was the long bomb,
and yet Standward didn't really have that long, strong of
an arm. No, he able to to still implant that
fear with a quarterback who really, by admissioned by many
people who played with him, did not have that strong arm.
And yet when you think of Stabler, I think of
Stabward branch and a long bomb. Yet he really well.
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The great thing about Kenny Stable was that he might
not have had, uh the great deep throwing ability that
La Monica would have, or Plunkett would have, or maybe
even Schrader would have. But what he had was a
great insight, a great ability to make the big play
when he needed to, and when he needed his long
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his long strike, he would get it. And we had
put so much fear into everybody with it that from
time to time he would throw it, hit it, and
then get away from it for a while. But he
was so so accurate in the intermediate ranges in the
fifteen and seventeen and eighteen yards, and he was fearless
and uh, he just made it happen. But when you
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asked me to rate them as far as long bomb
vertical throwing, no, I don't think he would be in
that classification. But I think it's similar today. Uh Montana,
who is very much like Stable, is not a great
deep throw, but yet he can make the big play
deep and does it continuously to Rice when he needs it.
(09:08):
And that was that was Stable. The only the only
difference would be uh that we we wanted to take
it more often. We looked for it more often, and
that was our game plan more often as opposed maybe
to the forty nine is who want to move the
chains and control of all? What about let's switch over
to UH to defense. But now we just discussed the
(09:28):
offensive theory. What about defensive theory looking at it from
the other other, the other perspective, the other side of
the ball. Well, well, well, the defensive theory evolved early
on in the sixties. UH to number one, pressure put
pressure on the pocket, put pressure on the quarterback, the
versification of defense and the utilization of your corners in
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a bump and run principle. We used to call it
the press. We we got the idea from John Wooden
when he had his great zone press in the sixties
with his great basketball teams, where they picked you up
soon as you took the ball out and the pressug
in put didn't let you bring that ball up the
court free. And we got the item we call it president.
I think it was Don Shula s thought using the
(10:13):
word bump and run, and so we changed to bump
and run, and uh, that's the way we wanted our
corners to play. We wanted to attack the pocket. One
thing we do believe, We do believe that this is
a game psychologically of intimidation and a fear. I don't mean, uh,
cowardly fear, but fear. And I think this that's somewhere
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within the first five to ten plays of a game,
the other team's quarterback must go down, and he must
go down hard, and that alone sets a temple for
a game. We think it serves as as a tremendous
intimidation factor in the ensuing week when the next coach
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sits down with his quarterback and they start looking at
the games of the Raiders, and they started talking about coverages.
But that quarterback, when he's sitting there watching those coverages,
he's also seeing that other guy's quarterback going down and
he wants to see that. He says Rerun that he
wants to see the protection. And I think we start
to focus on the fact that the rates are going
(11:23):
to come after you. They're gonna knock you down, and
it's going to be relentless pressure on the corners. You're
not gonna be able to get those malty receivers the
way you'd like to in the spots that are diagramed
on the blackboard. And the idea is to disrupt the offense,
disrupt the flow of the offense, disrupt the continuity. And
we have to know, we have to know the other
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coach as well as we have to know the team.
We have to know the guy who calls the place.
If you play the forty nine is the great Bill
Walls three super Bowls in the eighties. If you don't
know how his mind works, if you don't know him
through and through, you've got a problem. When you play
the forty nine is not guarantee you if you knock
(12:05):
Montana down early when you're playing the fort is about
the first five plays of the game, you're knocking Bill
Walsh down too. And that's the idea of this game. Okay,
So I warned you i'd be back to test you.
Did you hear the line? One of the most famous
lines in NFL films history? And please excuse me because
(12:25):
I cannot invoke Al Davis's tone. But the quarterback must
go down, and he must go down hard. Does anything
epitomize Al Davis and his philosophy on defense more than that?
And by the way, as an aside, I really chuckled
when Davis noted his pride that Bill Walsh's first job
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in pro football was as an assistant for the Raiders,
because for Davis, all signs always pointed back to the
Silver and Black. Now, speaking of those great Raiders teams,
one of the foremost intimidators was safety Jack Tatum, nicknamed
the assass since Tatum hit like a linebacker and without remorse.
(13:08):
But in a preseason game, a hit by Tatum paralyzed
Patriots wide receiver Darryl Stingley in what remains to this
day one of the most devastating on field injuries in
NFL history. How about Jack Jack Tatum, that's how does
he figure it? I think Jack Tatum, uh was probably
(13:30):
the most feared player of his time in the secondary.
I don't think there's anybody else. Of all the young
players we talked to in the country today, and all
the players who played during the decades when Jack Tatum played,
the early seventies and the early eighties, and even the
young college players today, when they talk about someone who
personifies toughness on the football field, they talk about Jack
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Tatum and the Jack Tatum was a truly great player
from Ohawa State. I know his career ended a little
bit in controversy because of the hit he made on
Darryl Stingley, and unfortunately UH affected that Darryl's a physical being,
But it was an honest hit who was played on
the football field, and and truthfully, football is a violent game.
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It's a vicious struggle to be number one. It's a
vicious game among men who UH give their bodies. And Tatum,
as I say, was probably the most feared player of
his time. I know we got him in. We took
him number one. There were two other players on the
blackboard at the time that Jodan had and nine. The
(14:38):
rest of the staff discussed, but we felt our team
was starting to lack a little toughness and we felt
Tatum could bring back some of that toughness. Plus in
our conference, there was a team that was starting to
come on as a dominating team and they had a
left end or receiver that was starting to dominate our
conference with one play called the slant pass. And we
(15:03):
had to change off philosophy the on that slant pass.
We had to stop going for the ball and we
had to start going for the man. And it's ironic
that guy was from Ohio State too and Tatum and
he had some great confrontations. His name is Paul Warfield
for the Miami Dolphins. Could you talk about the influence
that Tatum had on on on just that the the
(15:25):
influence that he had on the game. This one safety
guys would just see him playing, they wouldn't they wouldn't
run the slant. Well, they wouldn't run the slant. And
a lot of teams would not come into the post.
And I know a lot of players that after they
retired or that I would talk to would say, I
know one players said that in his coaches meeting that
they put up a play on the board where he
was going into post and he just stood up and
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he said, I'm not going in there. And I'll never
forget the hit in the seventy seven Super Bowl against
the Minnesota Vikings that Jack Tatum put on Sammue White.
It was just the vicious and I think that what
we did because of Tatum too, we took out the
next step, no more spearing with the helmet, with the head,
because he was vicious with it and he was just
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a truly a great player and a great person and
a great contributor to the greatness of the Raiders. While
we're on this subject of contact, to me, that's the
essence of football is contact. What is your feeling about,
I mean the contact this for I mean, is that
sometimes overdone? Or is that what you said? I mean,
that's that's the game of football, That's what that's the
essence of the game. Well, the essence of the game,
(16:32):
really steve. Unfortunately, in our culture, there's only one thing
that matters is who wins. You have to win. The winner,
writes the history book. The winner gets the super Bowl Trophy.
The winner is the genius, the win is the host
paid player. You have to win in our culture. I've
never seen anything like it. Even the guy who comes
in second and the super Bowl is a big loser.
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And the game is a vicious game. It's a violent game.
And now you can't win a super Bowl today. I
say this sincerely. We're the only a SC team to
win a super Bowl in the hes because winning super
Bowls is based on power and physicalness. And I admit
that the forty Niners don't have an offense that's devised
(17:16):
for power, but Roger Craig makes it power by the
way he plays. And Bill Walsh learned early and I'm
pretty proud of this that builds first job in professional
football was an assistant coach with the Raiders. Bill learned
early that you gotta play tough, and you've gotta have
pressure defense, you gotta attack, and you gotta be tough,
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otherwise you're not gonna win super Bowls. And if you
look at the great teams of the eighties, the seventies,
all the teams that won Super Bowls, there might be
an exception tough defense, physical defense. If you ever thought
that the rogues swashbuckling image of the Raiders was just
something that happened. It's pretty clear that it was no accident.
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Davis's just win Baby mantra defined his legacy, but really
for him it could have been just into imidate baby,
and back in the seventies and eighties you could the
violence of football has largely been legislated out of the game. Today,
it's still a collision sport, but the head hunting and
deliberate attempts to injure or at least inflict pain are
(18:18):
no longer the objective. When we come back, Alan Steve
get into Davis's numerous innovations in the game of football.
You'll want to learn about these. Stay tuned, Welcome back
to NFL Films Tales from the Vault. There's only been
a handful of owners in the history of the league
(18:39):
who also were head coaches. That includes Bert Bell, Paul Brown,
George Hallis, and of course Al Davis. As we heard
in the first segment, Davis wanted to play a very
specific brand of football, which meant that he had a
very specific philosophy of team building. Now, if you remember
(18:59):
a couple of weeks ago when we had Tom Brady
on I pointed out that what he was talking about
was a clinic in leadership. Well, what we're about to hear,
in my opinion, is a lesson in developing culture knowing
what you want that to mean and what you want
that to because I think that the word gets thrown
around so much, but what does it really mean in practicality.
(19:24):
We're about to hear from Al Davis what it meant
to be a Raider. You look back on your career
in the NFL and in the a f L, is
there one innovation that you're particularly proud of? The one
you can pinpoint that you're really proud of. Maybe it
was instituting a rules change or something that maybe we
haven't even discussed. I just know I I I think,
(19:48):
to be real honest, if there's anything we've ever done,
then I'm particularly proud of about myself or about innovation.
I would have to say that the perpetuation of the
greatness of the RAID is to take a professional football
team and give it a distinct character, aist that's different
from all of us, and have a total around the
(20:10):
country the fan base and the fan support that we have,
and not only around the country, as we've learned in
recent years in the Far East and UH in the
European countries. In London, rate of fan clubs, I I
just think that's that's the thing that has intrigued me
the most. Matthew talk about a specific innovation, a way
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of playing the game. Is that, Yeah, well, I think
there are so many characteristics that I lump it into one,
but I think it's it goes back to the perpetuation
of the rate is as a distinct different entity from
all other professional football teams, and that one has endured
over a period of time, and our great records and
uh are great coaches and and what is that distinctiveness?
(20:55):
Can you put your finger on that? We're talking about
a mystique, charisma? Just can you describe what that what
this think is that makes the Raiders different? What it
is about this organization that is different, that does attract
the fans, that does have the pistons wearing your your jersey?
What is it that you have struck here with the
(21:15):
public or something that makes people gravitate towards your your
your style or your team. Well, number one, we win
and you have to win to get any adulation or
any any glory in our society. Number two, just there
are several characteristics of the team. I I think the fear,
the intimidation, the mystique about it, the quick strike, the touchdowns,
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the great players who've played here, the great coaches, the
great games we've played. In the fact that off the field, uh,
we we are mavericks per se. We we do our
own thing. We don't want to hurt others. We want
to dominate the environment rather than just be a part
of the environment. And uh our organization operates differently. It's
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a small, close knit organization. Total loyalty for many years.
Uh Uh we we have a certain code about We
don't have a chain of command within our organization. When
you think of of of of a big organization, you
think of chain to command, we don't have that. We
have a self staught as no fear of failure. I
I would just like the hope that the dream I
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had when I came in nine to Oakland to build
the finest organization in professional sports. All those things I
would hope that would come. I didn't care as much
about being respected as I cared from the standpoint of winning,
about being feared and being imitated and in respect could
come after that. Let's go back to something that you
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had discussed earlier about leadership, and and that's something that
obviously that No, there could never be a great organization
without great leadership. Now, from your perspective, what is the
key ingredient we're talking about just to talk about leadership,
what's the key ingredient to be a great leader or
necessary for for leadership? Well, I personally have always felt
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that there were two underlying philosophies that have governed my
approach to it. One is, a great person is someone
who can inspire in others the will to be great.
He didn't necessarily have to be great himself at it.
But if he can motivate people into doing great things
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for singleness of purpose, unity of purpose, common goals, I
think that's great leadership. That's number one and number two
within this great leadership. When you're dealing with people, when
you have to lead men, you don't do unto others
as you would have others do unto you. You do
unto them in a paramilitary situation as they want to
(23:52):
be done unto. You have to treat them the way
they want to be treated. You have to know their
cultures because we all come from different places. You have
to know how they were brought up. You have to
know their likes and dislike, you have to know their families.
These are the things I think that make for great leadership.
And then you have to create an environment where everyone
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has faith in the environment, that this environment has a
will to win, that this environment wants to do right
by you, that this environment is going to be fair,
That this environment doesn't have any concern as to who
you are or where you came from, but rather can
you contribute? Can you make a contribution to the greatness
(24:35):
of the ratis? Now, what about problems and leadership and problems?
And you had a great expression for that. I forget
how you said it. Well, what I said was that
in our day and age, if you're gonna lead, if
you're going to lead an organization, if you're going to
come to work every day, first of all, you have
to have a commitment to excellence. Number two, it should
(24:56):
be a way of life for you. And number three,
problems are normal. Problems are normal. You don't treat him
as special aces. You treat them just like you treat
them as an everyday occurrence. And then rather than deal
with emergencies as they occur, you try to develop plans
(25:17):
to forestall emergencies or to deal with them when they
do occur. And that's what I meant that if you
came to work every day and responded to every players
inequities or idiosyncrasies, or your secretaries or you you, you
you couldn't. You couldn't operate with the modus operendi today.
(25:39):
You just couldn't do it. You have to keep your
eye on what you're trying to do. You have to
move them, you have to motivate them, you have to
inspire them some you have to drive. It's all different,
but you are the leader and it falls back on you.
The responsibility is on you if you're gonna lead, if
you're going to accept it, and you can't rationalize and
(26:00):
say he didn't do this, or he didn't do Occasionally
you can do that amongst your friends, but you can't
take it out on him. That's your responsibility to get
him to do it. One of the things to me
that that's really fascinating about the success of the Raiders
is that, as you said, three decades, but when you
look in those three decades, I don't know whether there's
been three more diverse decades in American life. When you
(26:20):
have the sixties, seventies and the eighties and you're dealing
with young people and where the most vulnerable changes, how
did I mean, how did you perceive that you had
the sixties was one then the seventies and you've still
been able to motivate people these young people. I mean,
is that something that that you must be, that you
have must have the organization so attuned that the way
it's different now, And like when we're talking about Lombardi,
(26:43):
Lombardi came into seventies, he if he had stayed the
way he was, he might not have been a success. Probably,
what how have you been able to be so sensitive
to that over the years that that that that because
you're dealing with and the team's change, the kids change,
and then at times change. And yet you said in
your your your philosophy before the football you haven't changed,
but there's something out it must have changed. And the
(27:03):
ability to handle the people, to motivate the people. Maybe
when I'm back to the leadership, well, I think it
is that because in the early sixties I realized that
it no longer was just a spot and author terian approach.
You had to adjust to the players. You had to
change your system of activities just a little bit to
adjust to the players. You had to learn about them.
(27:25):
No longer could we treat them the way we wanted
to be treated. We had to treat them the way
they wanted to be treated. We had to know more
about them. And I've always been big on environment, big
on culture, and we've always studied real hard as to
what's going on. Obviously, I know what went on in
the sixties and obviously the seventies. The only thing this
(27:47):
organization might have been slow on when it came to
the utilization of our personnel and people was the drug thing.
I didn't understand drugs in the late seventies, couldn't understand it,
couldn't fathom it. And it was only after one or
two players us who we were able to save, that
(28:07):
I realized that the drugs had to be dealt with
in only one way, and that's total total police state
on top of them. Don't ask them, don't expect them,
don't think that they can do it by themselves. You
almost have to be on top of them every day
(28:29):
to win that battle and that that concerns me greatly
about our culture. I've said it, the genocide of American youth.
I'm probably more worried about that than anything else that's
going on other than life or death. Health. But I
really feel that we're losing the battle this country is.
We talk it, there are ways to beat it, but
we're not even coming close to it. And uh, but
(28:51):
I I appreciate the fact that you think that we've
been able to in all three decades to motivate men,
which we think we have, But I think it starts
with the environment. I think kids all over America. No
television has been a big advent, you know, that's communication, NFL, films,
the radio. But I think kids all over America know
(29:13):
that the rate is what they stand for. That there's
a sense of fairness there, there's a sense of honesty there,
there's a will to win, there's a commitment to excellence.
It's sound as a pride and poise and h that
if they do come here, that we're going to adjust
to him a little bit, but within the framework of
an entire organization with a will to win, to be
(29:35):
a successful leader. I have a quote here and I'm
not sure to attributed. But to be to be successful,
especially in a business as competitive, is this, do you
have to be ruthless in a sense that means there
a certain ruthlessness in your as being the leader? Is
that something that that you have to exercise that talent?
(29:57):
Is that necessary to be a good leader? Well, first
of all, this is a business that involves a should
struggle vicious to be number one. Everyone now wants to
be number one. We used to have some teams in
our league that weren't as concerned about being number one,
but the pressures of the press, the media and the
(30:17):
fan has made everyone want to be number one. So
it's a vicious struggle and within the confines a great leadership. Yes,
I think that every grade. I'm not talking about a
good leader. Now, every great leader has some ruthlessness to
him and you have to use it at times. And uh,
the important thing is not to use it to hurt people,
(30:40):
but to use it for the good of the group,
to get the goals done, to win. You know, ruthlessness
by itself is a bad sounding word, but ruthfulness to
get the end result that everyone wants without hurting people
is not a bad sounding word. If I know someone
is on drugs and I'm ruthless with him, that's not
(31:04):
and if I can save them. So when you start
to use the word, you have to tell me the
context that you're using in it. Hell, yes, I think
ruthlessness is an attribute of a great leader. He has
to have the ability to use it at the right time,
not to hurt, but to help and to help the
group and to win. Can you think of any time
in your in your career that you have to exercise
(31:26):
that other than the drug thing that you that that
that you knew said, boy, this is I'm going to
have to be a real harness and this but for
the good of the organization, I'm going to have to
do it. Yes, I've done it several times. And uh
at the time that I did it, Uh, I was
chastised publicly a great deal, but both players truly great
(31:48):
players after it happened, years later admitted that I had
done the right thing and h both times, Uh, we
won Super Bowls. And also there have been times whereof
I've had to go into a locker room and take
(32:10):
a gun away from a player because he had threatened
some other players. And there I don't know if I
was ruthless or crazy, but I did it. I I
think throughout my life I've had to use that particular word. Now,
I like when you use the word ruthless with brilliant
and genius, and I'm willing to take all three. But
(32:33):
just us depicting this one word concerns me a little.
But yes, I've used it throughout my life and throughout
my years as a as a coach and as a
commissioner even and as a general manager. Yes, and uh
sure as a commissioner, I use that. You have to
be other words that have been used to describe you, cunning, devious?
(32:57):
Does that bother you to be to hear those two
words described, to hear those words attributed to you from someone?
When Al Davis and successful? There are other articles the
most hated winner, uh cunning, devious and obviously? But does
that bother you when you hear or that just just
you could say Churchill was devious, Roosevelt was. You can
(33:18):
go through history and use those same words to other people.
I just want to personally, when you heard that, that
does that body? No? I say this, if they were
to use the word, uh, devious just by itself, it
would be annoying for the moment, but when you throw
it in, they like to throw it in with us.
I said, brilliant, genius, win a devious, ruthless, cunning. No,
(33:39):
I'll take it because I think uh uh. And I
don't rationalize it by saying uh greatness needs that. But
I believe that you have to have those qualities if
you're going to lead men for the good of the group,
when you're in a competitive aspect of life. Now, if
I were a scientist, well, if I were just a
medical doctor, I might resent those words. But when you're
(34:03):
in a competitive aspect, if you're President of the United States,
I feel the Secretary of State, if you're in a
competitive aspect of life, representing the group and trying to
see that that group gets ahead. Yeah, I think you
need all those qualities, and thank God that you're able
to have them and use them. Again. When you have
those qualities, it's how you use them that's important. If
(34:26):
you use them for the good of you a group,
to help you a group, not to hurt people, well,
I think it's great. Only Al Davis can take the
adjectives cunning and devious and turn them into attributes. Look
Davis had his hands in all facets of the team,
but make no mistake, he was an incessant film watcher.
(34:47):
It was all about the product on the field. In fact,
if you were coaching for the Raiders, you were going
to be challenged and tested by a man who in
most cases had more experience coaching than you did. He
was a tremendous resource for young coaches like John Madden
who benefited from that partnership with the Super Bowl title.
And it's not a coincidence that younger coaches like Jon
(35:10):
Gruden the first time around, and even Mike Shanahan who
chafed at the quote unquote interference, were short lived with
the Raiders. When we come back, just when Baby the
origin story stay tuned now congratulated Raider management put together great,
(35:37):
great football team when they sure showed the day. Just
(36:01):
has there ever been a mantra more identified able with
one team then Al Davis's signature phrase said here. Following
the Raiders three Super Bowl win over Washington, it was
particularly sweet for Davis, who was receiving the trophy from
NFL Commissioner Pete Roselle, with whom Davis had just had
(36:21):
a lengthy court battle over Davis's desire and ability to
move the team to Los Angeles. Davis, just one baby?
How did that just win? Baby? Uh? Involved? Because that
just by itself seems very simple, but the way you
evolved to it, to me gives the meaning, gives that
phrase a lot more impact. I'd like you to explain
(36:43):
how that you got to that that just win baby? Well,
you know, all philosophy here the Raiders is not to
be afraid of failure. For even all our organizational people
who work in administration, public relations. If you're going to
be a self starter in life and you're gonna be
afraid of failure or fear of losing, you're not really
(37:04):
gonna be a positive person, a positive thinker, as far
as I'm concerned. And I felt that what was starting
to permeate professional football with three axioms one take what
they give you, two don't make mistakes, and three run
the ball to set up the passing game. Well, first
(37:26):
of all, I don't think that's true, because I think
you have to throw deep early, you have to attack early.
You have to show somebody that you can go up
on top early and put the fear of God on
the number. Two As I told you before, I don't
think it's take what they give you. I think you
have to have the ability to take what you want.
And number three, I don't think it's don't make mistakes.
(37:46):
I think everyone makes mistakes today the way we're judged,
we're so closely scrutinized, it's almost impossible not to make
a few other than you and I, Steve, But I
think I think you make mistakes. And I wanted to
permeate our football team was just win, play hard, try
(38:06):
not to make mistakes, but don't worry about mistakes, because
there's only one thing that counts, just win. And I
think if you look at every great football game, every
great team that wins a Super Bowl, you hear how
they played a perfect game, or they did this and that,
But God almighty, they made mistakes. They're just not as
noticeable when you win. Of all the things that have
(38:28):
written about you and been said in the media, which
is probably more than anybody in the game today, what
do you think is the biggest misconception the public has
of you? First of all, it's a difficult question. No,
I don't think. I really don't think it's difficult because,
first of all, uh, what I want to do and
(38:49):
what I wanted to do. I think I've I think
I've done as I said. I wanted to build the
finest organization in professional sports. I wanted to have the
best records. I wanted to do all the things as
a kid that I dreamed of. And I thank God
and my parents that they've given me inspiration, They've got
or has given me the ability to do all these things,
(39:09):
to build the rates into this, that we would get
the recognition that we do, and that I would get
what you might call the copy that I do now.
I think the public has tremendous respect for the Raiders,
and I think they know that I win, that I've
had the opportunity in the past few years. I know
you know this too. Go to the Whole of Fame
(39:31):
six times, I'll go a seventh. That's more than anyone
in the history of professional sports to present seven guys
at the Whole of Fame. So there must be some
loyalty there with the players. UM My coaches John Madden,
truly great coach, went over a hundred games and ten years.
Close friend Tom Flora's close friends. I think that there
(39:51):
are a few press guys who uh I have been
willing to take on in my time because I think
they get out of line, they get out of hand,
and they shouldn't. And I don't think that they should
dictate as to what's done in professional sports. I think
they should report what's happening, not not what we should do.
And I think that I'm pretty satisfied with my reputation.
(40:13):
I think there have been approximately eight to ten sports
books and written in the past six to ten years.
I get a chapter in each book, and every one
of them has been of course, I'm selling myself here
and I don't like to do that. It's been total complimentary. Question. Yeah,
but even even Howard, who have great admiration for Howard Cosell,
(40:34):
gave me a chapter and his approach to me was
that I was a young Cassius, I was a maverick,
and that was his observation of of of Al Davis.
There is one thing that disturbed me for a short
while in eight when we left Oakland to come to
Los Angeles. And I had a great deal of love
for Oakland because I had lived there some seventeen eighteen
(40:56):
years and uh, we had done tremendous day of the
fans were horrific. We filled that stadium and that's where
we built the radis this, no question about it. I've
never denied it and look forward to it and memory
have great memories, great nostalgia. But the press in the
Oakland area who lied to the public, tried to depict
(41:18):
me as the bad guy, when in essence, we proved
in court and I don't know, we don't want to
get in the court cases that it was Roselle the
National Football League And now the ironic thing about it,
it's funny how time is a great healer. O wounds
the fans up in the Bay Area, the will of
the people, and you never know what's gonna happen. Want
(41:39):
the rates back, and there's no denying it. I think
when we played there this year this past season, played
the forty nine is and to hear the roar of
the crowd, the rate of fans in that stadium, it
was just unbelievable. And and uh, I think that that
that thing has changed. The truth has come out, and
I kind of feel vindicated on that. And it was
(42:00):
through the courtroom and and through the emotional fans that
they realized that the UH, the National Football League and
some of the politicians in Oakland messed up that deal
and they shouldn't have done it. So other other than that,
I don't think when you're a focal point of our
society today that you can come away unscathed. It's it's
it's impossible. And I think if overall the good, the
(42:25):
tremendous amount of UH popular and what you would call
good publicity outweighs the the negativeness one, you just accept
that as a fact of our life, just like problems
are normal. That's normal. Interesting thing that the scouting that
the Raiders have done and there's no computers, there's no
that the vertical leads the i Q test, and you've
(42:46):
been so successful bringing in parts of what why haven't
you you used all these so called sophisticated computerized things
and you're scouting, and what do you rely on when
you pick a player? What are the things that you
look for? Well? Well, number one, as as I tell you,
I'm a great believer, and that you just don't pick
players for the way they play. Now. You pick players
(43:09):
for the way they're gonna be to three years down
the road, after you train them, after you fit them
into your system, after you have an idea of what
you wanted at every particular position. In our consistency in
this particular time of great players at certain positions is
known by all our scouts. They know him personally because
(43:31):
most everyone who scouts for us played for us, so
worked for us, so they know what we're looking for.
At left tackle, we're looking for d Shell. We can't
always find it, but that's what we're looking for. At
left end, we're looking for Cliff Branch. We can't always
find it, but that's what we're looking for. But uh,
I never have believed that i Q was the determining
(43:55):
fact that who's a great football player. In fact, when
I was young, I often wondered about education. I've always
thought that right people teach themselves. I always thought there
ought to be a place for the unintelligent to go
to school, and that maybe our educational system is a
little off at times that we don't teach the unintelligent.
(44:17):
And I've always thought that the Raiders, if we're going
to be great leaders and great teachers, we can take
players who have a will, who want to be great,
who may not be as smart as you'd like them
to be. But we can teach them and coach him
and get them to do things the right way even
if they don't have great i q s. And then
I have found through the years that certain kids who
(44:42):
have street i Q street instincts may not have basic
i Q, may be afraid of tests and don't do
as well on them because uh, just the fear of failure. Uh,
let's be honest about it. One of the great players
of our last ten years, Lester Hayes, came to the
(45:02):
Raiders with the label of being a dumby, but no
one knew that he stuttered. And the reason I can
talk about it is because he, after persuasion, admitted his problem,
went to place and worked on it and came along
excellent as far as stuttering goes talk very well and uh,
but everyone thought he was a dummy because he wouldn't talk,
(45:23):
he was afraid to take in tests. But as far
as the street smarts and football smarts and football instinct
I don't know if you're ever going to find a
smarter one. And as far as contract negotiations, he had
the instincts of of someone from Brooklyn that I might
have grown up with. But I just think it's overrated.
(45:44):
I think all that stuff is. I think you have
to be able to run fast. Unfortunately, once in a
while you come across someone who can play great and
make a contribution that doesn't have speed. But this is
a game of speed and size and power and viciousness
and violence and fear and uh. But I've never been
a big believer on on that total like you, because
(46:07):
I think that's our John. As tunnel visioned as Davis
was about football, he was knowledgeable and certainly opinionated about
a variety of subjects, as exemplified by his digression on
the American educational system, and in terms of football, he
was willing to learn aspects from other sports as well.
(46:28):
Earlier in the interview we heard him reference the press
defense from John Wooden's great U c l A teams.
In fact, Davis loved women's basketball, what he thought was
almost a purer form of the game, and he could
learn various aspects from that sport as well. As His protege,
Amy Trask told me of her long time boss and mentor,
(46:49):
he was not only intelligent, he was wise. Next week
we bring you part two of this truly remarkable interview
with Davis and Steve Sable. They'll talk about Davis's upbringing,
his thoughts on John Madden, and what he wanted his
legacy to be. It's the seasoned finale of Tales from
(47:09):
the Vault. You won't want to miss it. Thanks for listening.
I'm Andrea Kramer.
Tales from the Vault is a production of the NFL
in partnership with I Heart Radio. Welcome to NFL Films
Tales from the Vault. I'm your host, Hall of Fame
journalist Andrea Kramer. This is a weekly podcast featuring conversations
between the late President of NFL Films, Steve Sable, and
(00:26):
some of the greatest figures in NFL history. We've dug
into the vault to find original interviews, raw, unedited, and
now you get to hear them in their entirety for
the first time. Consider the show sort of like a
time capsule, and I'm your tour guide, providing context and
insight into some of these lost treasures as they like
(00:48):
to call them at NFL Films. Now, I don't want
to say that we've saved the best for last. It's
kind of like saying which your children deal like the most.
But this is such a fascinating interview that we felt
like we had to split it into two parts. So
today we head back to teen eight nine for part
one of Steve sables epic interview with the late owner
(01:10):
of the Raiders, Al Davis. Very simply, Al Davis was
one of the most impactful characters in the history of
(01:32):
the National Football League. He's the only executive in NFL
history to be an assistant coach, head coach, general manager, commissioner,
and of course team owner. Remember when he was commissioner
of the a f L, he was mainly responsible for
the merger between the NFL and the a f L.
He had a profound impact on this league. Of course,
(01:56):
there were some downsides to that too. As Raiders owner,
he feuded with NFL Commissioner Pete Roselle and even sued
the league. And one he was controversial. He was a
lightning rod. But you know what, any chance that Steve
Sable had to sit down with Al Davis, he grabbed it.
And just a little alert here this interview features one
(02:17):
of the most memorable lines in the history of NFL films,
and I will come back to see if you have
figured it out. By the way, not only was Davis
an incredibly eloquent speaker, but you have to love the
southern tinged Brooklyn accent that was so unique to Al Davis.
So the following interview took place in the year that
(02:40):
Davis became the first owner to hire a black head coach.
In our shell but make no mistake, this was just
the third of his first if you will, after hiring
the first Latino head coach in Tom Flory's and of course,
the first female chief executive in Amy Trusk. And can
we note that this was before the league had to
(03:01):
mandate that minorities had to be interviewed or hired. Al
Davis was always a trailblazer and had very specific ideas
about how the game should be played and what kind
of players should be donning the silver and black. Steve
and I'll talk about quarterbacks. There's Darryl Amonica, the Mad Bomber,
the Snake, Kenny Stabler, George Blanda, and Jim Plunkett. Of course,
(03:24):
they also have to touch on safety Jack Tatum and
pretty much any famous Raider from the sixties, seventies and eighties,
including of course the great late John Madden. So let's
go to the vault for Steve Sable and Al Davis.
Let's just talk about your theory of offensive football and
the what you've done is really clear. You start with
(03:45):
a basic premise and then you can go off in
any directions. Remember I can can edit this and no, no, sure, okay,
I just want to go now to explain basically and
then maybe expand your theory of offensive and I wen
go to defense a little bit, passa pumping just right now,
take it off and just just that if you were
gonna sit here and talk to me about we'll right
(04:08):
go ahead. Well from day one, uh, when I came
here in nineteen sixty three, and I had had the
advantage from early nineteen sixty through nineteen sixty two to
be with Sid Gilman at San Diego. But I had
certain philosophies my own that had to be come part
of whatever I was to do. And that was number one,
(04:29):
what I call the vertical game. We were going to
stretch the field vertically. When we came out of the huddle.
We weren't looking for first downs. We didn't want to
move the chains. We wanted touchdowns. We wanted the big play,
the quick strike. And it's number one to say you
want to do that. It's number two to say that
you have the players to do it, but it's number
(04:49):
three to do it to do it on first down
of any football game. For that defense that you're playing against,
for those cornerbacks who play out there on the corners,
to know that the rates that are coming at you.
They're coming at you on top, and they've got the
speed to do it, and they will do it. It's
like having the bomb and being willing to drop it.
And uh so that was the foremost thing. Number Two.
(05:11):
I wanted power, big people. Not a diversification of a
running attack, but a power running attack. To develop toughness,
to develop physicalness. And then with the strike of the
big play the vertical game. That was rate of football.
Uh the adage that goes around in professional football, and
I hear everyone said, take what they give you, take
(05:32):
what they give you. They tell quarterbacks, read the defense,
hit the open man. Well, that all sounds good to everybody,
but I always want the other way. We're gonna take
what we want. That no design or no location of
defensive people on a blackboard, or just because they lined
up out there will stop us from taking what we want.
(05:54):
They have to prove to us that they can stop
us on the field. What about the one who has
delivered the bomb? What were you looking for in terms
of a court. Well, I think one great interesting is
to sistic about the Raiders is that we have played
in the Super Bowl. We're the only team in professional
football in the sixties, the seventies, and the eighties, and
(06:15):
in each decade a different quarterback has led us to
the Super Bowl. In the sixties it was the Lamonica
and the great George Blanda. In the seventies it was
a Snake Stable, and in the eighties it was Jim Plunkett.
So I think that shows a little bit that the
system which we've consistently used, we haven't changed much. We
(06:37):
haven't deviated much. The players have changed, but they're all
similar players to play the same positions that we started
with with the same concept, but the quarterbacks have changed.
And Uh Lamonica obviously was a great vertical throw, a
great deep throw. Uh Blanda was probably the greatest clutch
player to ever played professional football. Stable was the most
(06:59):
accurate passer of his time and might not have had
as great a deep ball as we like, but was
so accurate and could move the chains that we adjusted
a little bit to him. But there were a couple
of years where he and Branch were unstoppable. And then
of course you come to Plunket, who was just a
tremendously great vertical throw, a big play throw, not a
(07:20):
high percentage passing of all the passes I've named to you,
the only one who was a high percentage passing was Stable. Kenny.
We've never been greatly concerned about percentage throwing. We've been
concerned about two things, no interceptions and touchdowns. We're not
interested in the throws. Although Stable was a great percentage
(07:43):
throw when Stabler, an interesting thing about him is that
he to to the fan, the perception was the long bomb,
and yet Standward didn't really have that long, strong of
an arm. No, he able to to still implant that
fear with a quarterback who really, by admissioned by many
people who played with him, did not have that strong arm.
And yet when you think of Stabler, I think of
Stabward branch and a long bomb. Yet he really well.
(08:06):
The great thing about Kenny Stable was that he might
not have had, uh the great deep throwing ability that
La Monica would have, or Plunkett would have, or maybe
even Schrader would have. But what he had was a
great insight, a great ability to make the big play
when he needed to, and when he needed his long
(08:27):
his long strike, he would get it. And we had
put so much fear into everybody with it that from
time to time he would throw it, hit it, and
then get away from it for a while. But he
was so so accurate in the intermediate ranges in the
fifteen and seventeen and eighteen yards, and he was fearless
and uh, he just made it happen. But when you
(08:47):
asked me to rate them as far as long bomb
vertical throwing, no, I don't think he would be in
that classification. But I think it's similar today. Uh Montana,
who is very much like Stable, is not a great
deep throw, but yet he can make the big play
deep and does it continuously to Rice when he needs it.
(09:08):
And that was that was Stable. The only the only
difference would be uh that we we wanted to take
it more often. We looked for it more often, and
that was our game plan more often as opposed maybe
to the forty nine is who want to move the
chains and control of all? What about let's switch over
to UH to defense. But now we just discussed the
(09:28):
offensive theory. What about defensive theory looking at it from
the other other, the other perspective, the other side of
the ball. Well, well, well, the defensive theory evolved early
on in the sixties. UH to number one, pressure put
pressure on the pocket, put pressure on the quarterback, the
versification of defense and the utilization of your corners in
(09:52):
a bump and run principle. We used to call it
the press. We we got the idea from John Wooden
when he had his great zone press in the sixties
with his great basketball teams, where they picked you up
soon as you took the ball out and the pressug
in put didn't let you bring that ball up the
court free. And we got the item we call it president.
I think it was Don Shula s thought using the
(10:13):
word bump and run, and so we changed to bump
and run, and uh, that's the way we wanted our
corners to play. We wanted to attack the pocket. One
thing we do believe, We do believe that this is
a game psychologically of intimidation and a fear. I don't mean, uh,
cowardly fear, but fear. And I think this that's somewhere
(10:38):
within the first five to ten plays of a game,
the other team's quarterback must go down, and he must
go down hard, and that alone sets a temple for
a game. We think it serves as as a tremendous
intimidation factor in the ensuing week when the next coach
(10:59):
sits down with his quarterback and they start looking at
the games of the Raiders, and they started talking about coverages.
But that quarterback, when he's sitting there watching those coverages,
he's also seeing that other guy's quarterback going down and
he wants to see that. He says Rerun that he
wants to see the protection. And I think we start
to focus on the fact that the rates are going
(11:23):
to come after you. They're gonna knock you down, and
it's going to be relentless pressure on the corners. You're
not gonna be able to get those malty receivers the
way you'd like to in the spots that are diagramed
on the blackboard. And the idea is to disrupt the offense,
disrupt the flow of the offense, disrupt the continuity. And
we have to know, we have to know the other
(11:43):
coach as well as we have to know the team.
We have to know the guy who calls the place.
If you play the forty nine is the great Bill
Walls three super Bowls in the eighties. If you don't
know how his mind works, if you don't know him
through and through, you've got a problem. When you play
the forty nine is not guarantee you if you knock
(12:05):
Montana down early when you're playing the fort is about
the first five plays of the game, you're knocking Bill
Walsh down too. And that's the idea of this game. Okay,
So I warned you i'd be back to test you.
Did you hear the line? One of the most famous
lines in NFL films history? And please excuse me because
(12:25):
I cannot invoke Al Davis's tone. But the quarterback must
go down, and he must go down hard. Does anything
epitomize Al Davis and his philosophy on defense more than that?
And by the way, as an aside, I really chuckled
when Davis noted his pride that Bill Walsh's first job
(12:47):
in pro football was as an assistant for the Raiders,
because for Davis, all signs always pointed back to the
Silver and Black. Now, speaking of those great Raiders teams,
one of the foremost intimidators was safety Jack Tatum, nicknamed
the assass since Tatum hit like a linebacker and without remorse.
(13:08):
But in a preseason game, a hit by Tatum paralyzed
Patriots wide receiver Darryl Stingley in what remains to this
day one of the most devastating on field injuries in
NFL history. How about Jack Jack Tatum, that's how does
he figure it? I think Jack Tatum, uh was probably
(13:30):
the most feared player of his time in the secondary.
I don't think there's anybody else. Of all the young
players we talked to in the country today, and all
the players who played during the decades when Jack Tatum played,
the early seventies and the early eighties, and even the
young college players today, when they talk about someone who
personifies toughness on the football field, they talk about Jack
(13:54):
Tatum and the Jack Tatum was a truly great player
from Ohawa State. I know his career ended a little
bit in controversy because of the hit he made on
Darryl Stingley, and unfortunately UH affected that Darryl's a physical being,
But it was an honest hit who was played on
the football field, and and truthfully, football is a violent game.
(14:18):
It's a vicious struggle to be number one. It's a
vicious game among men who UH give their bodies. And Tatum,
as I say, was probably the most feared player of
his time. I know we got him in. We took
him number one. There were two other players on the
blackboard at the time that Jodan had and nine. The
(14:38):
rest of the staff discussed, but we felt our team
was starting to lack a little toughness and we felt
Tatum could bring back some of that toughness. Plus in
our conference, there was a team that was starting to
come on as a dominating team and they had a
left end or receiver that was starting to dominate our
conference with one play called the slant pass. And we
(15:03):
had to change off philosophy the on that slant pass.
We had to stop going for the ball and we
had to start going for the man. And it's ironic
that guy was from Ohio State too and Tatum and
he had some great confrontations. His name is Paul Warfield
for the Miami Dolphins. Could you talk about the influence
that Tatum had on on on just that the the
(15:25):
influence that he had on the game. This one safety
guys would just see him playing, they wouldn't they wouldn't
run the slant. Well, they wouldn't run the slant. And
a lot of teams would not come into the post.
And I know a lot of players that after they
retired or that I would talk to would say, I
know one players said that in his coaches meeting that
they put up a play on the board where he
was going into post and he just stood up and
(15:47):
he said, I'm not going in there. And I'll never
forget the hit in the seventy seven Super Bowl against
the Minnesota Vikings that Jack Tatum put on Sammue White.
It was just the vicious and I think that what
we did because of Tatum too, we took out the
next step, no more spearing with the helmet, with the head,
because he was vicious with it and he was just
(16:10):
a truly a great player and a great person and
a great contributor to the greatness of the Raiders. While
we're on this subject of contact, to me, that's the
essence of football is contact. What is your feeling about,
I mean the contact this for I mean, is that
sometimes overdone? Or is that what you said? I mean,
that's that's the game of football, That's what that's the
essence of the game. Well, the essence of the game,
(16:32):
really steve. Unfortunately, in our culture, there's only one thing
that matters is who wins. You have to win. The winner,
writes the history book. The winner gets the super Bowl Trophy.
The winner is the genius, the win is the host
paid player. You have to win in our culture. I've
never seen anything like it. Even the guy who comes
in second and the super Bowl is a big loser.
(16:55):
And the game is a vicious game. It's a violent game.
And now you can't win a super Bowl today. I
say this sincerely. We're the only a SC team to
win a super Bowl in the hes because winning super
Bowls is based on power and physicalness. And I admit
that the forty Niners don't have an offense that's devised
(17:16):
for power, but Roger Craig makes it power by the
way he plays. And Bill Walsh learned early and I'm
pretty proud of this that builds first job in professional
football was an assistant coach with the Raiders. Bill learned
early that you gotta play tough, and you've gotta have
pressure defense, you gotta attack, and you gotta be tough,
(17:37):
otherwise you're not gonna win super Bowls. And if you
look at the great teams of the eighties, the seventies,
all the teams that won Super Bowls, there might be
an exception tough defense, physical defense. If you ever thought
that the rogues swashbuckling image of the Raiders was just
something that happened. It's pretty clear that it was no accident.
(17:58):
Davis's just win Baby mantra defined his legacy, but really
for him it could have been just into imidate baby,
and back in the seventies and eighties you could the
violence of football has largely been legislated out of the game. Today,
it's still a collision sport, but the head hunting and
deliberate attempts to injure or at least inflict pain are
(18:18):
no longer the objective. When we come back, Alan Steve
get into Davis's numerous innovations in the game of football.
You'll want to learn about these. Stay tuned, Welcome back
to NFL Films Tales from the Vault. There's only been
a handful of owners in the history of the league
(18:39):
who also were head coaches. That includes Bert Bell, Paul Brown,
George Hallis, and of course Al Davis. As we heard
in the first segment, Davis wanted to play a very
specific brand of football, which meant that he had a
very specific philosophy of team building. Now, if you remember
(18:59):
a couple of weeks ago when we had Tom Brady
on I pointed out that what he was talking about
was a clinic in leadership. Well, what we're about to hear,
in my opinion, is a lesson in developing culture knowing
what you want that to mean and what you want
that to because I think that the word gets thrown
around so much, but what does it really mean in practicality.
(19:24):
We're about to hear from Al Davis what it meant
to be a Raider. You look back on your career
in the NFL and in the a f L, is
there one innovation that you're particularly proud of? The one
you can pinpoint that you're really proud of. Maybe it
was instituting a rules change or something that maybe we
haven't even discussed. I just know I I I think,
(19:48):
to be real honest, if there's anything we've ever done,
then I'm particularly proud of about myself or about innovation.
I would have to say that the perpetuation of the
greatness of the RAID is to take a professional football
team and give it a distinct character, aist that's different
from all of us, and have a total around the
(20:10):
country the fan base and the fan support that we have,
and not only around the country, as we've learned in
recent years in the Far East and UH in the
European countries. In London, rate of fan clubs, I I
just think that's that's the thing that has intrigued me
the most. Matthew talk about a specific innovation, a way
(20:31):
of playing the game. Is that, Yeah, well, I think
there are so many characteristics that I lump it into one,
but I think it's it goes back to the perpetuation
of the rate is as a distinct different entity from
all other professional football teams, and that one has endured
over a period of time, and our great records and
uh are great coaches and and what is that distinctiveness?
(20:55):
Can you put your finger on that? We're talking about
a mystique, charisma? Just can you describe what that what
this think is that makes the Raiders different? What it
is about this organization that is different, that does attract
the fans, that does have the pistons wearing your your jersey?
What is it that you have struck here with the
(21:15):
public or something that makes people gravitate towards your your
your style or your team. Well, number one, we win
and you have to win to get any adulation or
any any glory in our society. Number two, just there
are several characteristics of the team. I I think the fear,
the intimidation, the mystique about it, the quick strike, the touchdowns,
(21:39):
the great players who've played here, the great coaches, the
great games we've played. In the fact that off the field, uh,
we we are mavericks per se. We we do our
own thing. We don't want to hurt others. We want
to dominate the environment rather than just be a part
of the environment. And uh our organization operates differently. It's
(22:03):
a small, close knit organization. Total loyalty for many years.
Uh Uh we we have a certain code about We
don't have a chain of command within our organization. When
you think of of of of a big organization, you
think of chain to command, we don't have that. We
have a self staught as no fear of failure. I
I would just like the hope that the dream I
(22:26):
had when I came in nine to Oakland to build
the finest organization in professional sports. All those things I
would hope that would come. I didn't care as much
about being respected as I cared from the standpoint of winning,
about being feared and being imitated and in respect could
come after that. Let's go back to something that you
(22:49):
had discussed earlier about leadership, and and that's something that
obviously that No, there could never be a great organization
without great leadership. Now, from your perspective, what is the
key ingredient we're talking about just to talk about leadership,
what's the key ingredient to be a great leader or
necessary for for leadership? Well, I personally have always felt
(23:10):
that there were two underlying philosophies that have governed my
approach to it. One is, a great person is someone
who can inspire in others the will to be great.
He didn't necessarily have to be great himself at it.
But if he can motivate people into doing great things
(23:30):
for singleness of purpose, unity of purpose, common goals, I
think that's great leadership. That's number one and number two
within this great leadership. When you're dealing with people, when
you have to lead men, you don't do unto others
as you would have others do unto you. You do
unto them in a paramilitary situation as they want to
(23:52):
be done unto. You have to treat them the way
they want to be treated. You have to know their
cultures because we all come from different places. You have
to know how they were brought up. You have to
know their likes and dislike, you have to know their families.
These are the things I think that make for great leadership.
And then you have to create an environment where everyone
(24:14):
has faith in the environment, that this environment has a
will to win, that this environment wants to do right
by you, that this environment is going to be fair,
That this environment doesn't have any concern as to who
you are or where you came from, but rather can
you contribute? Can you make a contribution to the greatness
(24:35):
of the ratis? Now, what about problems and leadership and problems?
And you had a great expression for that. I forget
how you said it. Well, what I said was that
in our day and age, if you're gonna lead, if
you're going to lead an organization, if you're going to
come to work every day, first of all, you have
to have a commitment to excellence. Number two, it should
(24:56):
be a way of life for you. And number three,
problems are normal. Problems are normal. You don't treat him
as special aces. You treat them just like you treat
them as an everyday occurrence. And then rather than deal
with emergencies as they occur, you try to develop plans
(25:17):
to forestall emergencies or to deal with them when they
do occur. And that's what I meant that if you
came to work every day and responded to every players
inequities or idiosyncrasies, or your secretaries or you you, you
you couldn't. You couldn't operate with the modus operendi today.
(25:39):
You just couldn't do it. You have to keep your
eye on what you're trying to do. You have to
move them, you have to motivate them, you have to
inspire them some you have to drive. It's all different,
but you are the leader and it falls back on you.
The responsibility is on you if you're gonna lead, if
you're going to accept it, and you can't rationalize and
(26:00):
say he didn't do this, or he didn't do Occasionally
you can do that amongst your friends, but you can't
take it out on him. That's your responsibility to get
him to do it. One of the things to me
that that's really fascinating about the success of the Raiders
is that, as you said, three decades, but when you
look in those three decades, I don't know whether there's
been three more diverse decades in American life. When you
(26:20):
have the sixties, seventies and the eighties and you're dealing
with young people and where the most vulnerable changes, how
did I mean, how did you perceive that you had
the sixties was one then the seventies and you've still
been able to motivate people these young people. I mean,
is that something that that you must be, that you
have must have the organization so attuned that the way
it's different now, And like when we're talking about Lombardi,
(26:43):
Lombardi came into seventies, he if he had stayed the
way he was, he might not have been a success. Probably,
what how have you been able to be so sensitive
to that over the years that that that that because
you're dealing with and the team's change, the kids change,
and then at times change. And yet you said in
your your your philosophy before the football you haven't changed,
but there's something out it must have changed. And the
(27:03):
ability to handle the people, to motivate the people. Maybe
when I'm back to the leadership, well, I think it
is that because in the early sixties I realized that
it no longer was just a spot and author terian approach.
You had to adjust to the players. You had to
change your system of activities just a little bit to
adjust to the players. You had to learn about them.
(27:25):
No longer could we treat them the way we wanted
to be treated. We had to treat them the way
they wanted to be treated. We had to know more
about them. And I've always been big on environment, big
on culture, and we've always studied real hard as to
what's going on. Obviously, I know what went on in
the sixties and obviously the seventies. The only thing this
(27:47):
organization might have been slow on when it came to
the utilization of our personnel and people was the drug thing.
I didn't understand drugs in the late seventies, couldn't understand it,
couldn't fathom it. And it was only after one or
two players us who we were able to save, that
(28:07):
I realized that the drugs had to be dealt with
in only one way, and that's total total police state
on top of them. Don't ask them, don't expect them,
don't think that they can do it by themselves. You
almost have to be on top of them every day
(28:29):
to win that battle and that that concerns me greatly
about our culture. I've said it, the genocide of American youth.
I'm probably more worried about that than anything else that's
going on other than life or death. Health. But I
really feel that we're losing the battle this country is.
We talk it, there are ways to beat it, but
we're not even coming close to it. And uh, but
(28:51):
I I appreciate the fact that you think that we've
been able to in all three decades to motivate men,
which we think we have, But I think it starts
with the environment. I think kids all over America. No
television has been a big advent, you know, that's communication, NFL, films,
the radio. But I think kids all over America know
(29:13):
that the rate is what they stand for. That there's
a sense of fairness there, there's a sense of honesty there,
there's a will to win, there's a commitment to excellence.
It's sound as a pride and poise and h that
if they do come here, that we're going to adjust
to him a little bit, but within the framework of
an entire organization with a will to win, to be
(29:35):
a successful leader. I have a quote here and I'm
not sure to attributed. But to be to be successful,
especially in a business as competitive, is this, do you
have to be ruthless in a sense that means there
a certain ruthlessness in your as being the leader? Is
that something that that you have to exercise that talent?
(29:57):
Is that necessary to be a good leader? Well, first
of all, this is a business that involves a should
struggle vicious to be number one. Everyone now wants to
be number one. We used to have some teams in
our league that weren't as concerned about being number one,
but the pressures of the press, the media and the
(30:17):
fan has made everyone want to be number one. So
it's a vicious struggle and within the confines a great leadership. Yes,
I think that every grade. I'm not talking about a
good leader. Now, every great leader has some ruthlessness to
him and you have to use it at times. And uh,
the important thing is not to use it to hurt people,
(30:40):
but to use it for the good of the group,
to get the goals done, to win. You know, ruthlessness
by itself is a bad sounding word, but ruthfulness to
get the end result that everyone wants without hurting people
is not a bad sounding word. If I know someone
is on drugs and I'm ruthless with him, that's not
(31:04):
and if I can save them. So when you start
to use the word, you have to tell me the
context that you're using in it. Hell, yes, I think
ruthlessness is an attribute of a great leader. He has
to have the ability to use it at the right time,
not to hurt, but to help and to help the
group and to win. Can you think of any time
in your in your career that you have to exercise
(31:26):
that other than the drug thing that you that that
that you knew said, boy, this is I'm going to
have to be a real harness and this but for
the good of the organization, I'm going to have to
do it. Yes, I've done it several times. And uh
at the time that I did it, Uh, I was
chastised publicly a great deal, but both players truly great
(31:48):
players after it happened, years later admitted that I had
done the right thing and h both times, Uh, we
won Super Bowls. And also there have been times whereof
I've had to go into a locker room and take
(32:10):
a gun away from a player because he had threatened
some other players. And there I don't know if I
was ruthless or crazy, but I did it. I I
think throughout my life I've had to use that particular word. Now,
I like when you use the word ruthless with brilliant
and genius, and I'm willing to take all three. But
(32:33):
just us depicting this one word concerns me a little.
But yes, I've used it throughout my life and throughout
my years as a as a coach and as a
commissioner even and as a general manager. Yes, and uh
sure as a commissioner, I use that. You have to
be other words that have been used to describe you, cunning, devious?
(32:57):
Does that bother you to be to hear those two
words described, to hear those words attributed to you from someone?
When Al Davis and successful? There are other articles the
most hated winner, uh cunning, devious and obviously? But does
that bother you when you hear or that just just
you could say Churchill was devious, Roosevelt was. You can
(33:18):
go through history and use those same words to other people.
I just want to personally, when you heard that, that
does that body? No? I say this, if they were
to use the word, uh, devious just by itself, it
would be annoying for the moment, but when you throw
it in, they like to throw it in with us.
I said, brilliant, genius, win a devious, ruthless, cunning. No,
(33:39):
I'll take it because I think uh uh. And I
don't rationalize it by saying uh greatness needs that. But
I believe that you have to have those qualities if
you're going to lead men for the good of the group,
when you're in a competitive aspect of life. Now, if
I were a scientist, well, if I were just a
medical doctor, I might resent those words. But when you're
(34:03):
in a competitive aspect, if you're President of the United States,
I feel the Secretary of State, if you're in a
competitive aspect of life, representing the group and trying to
see that that group gets ahead. Yeah, I think you
need all those qualities, and thank God that you're able
to have them and use them. Again. When you have
those qualities, it's how you use them that's important. If
(34:26):
you use them for the good of you a group,
to help you a group, not to hurt people, well,
I think it's great. Only Al Davis can take the
adjectives cunning and devious and turn them into attributes. Look
Davis had his hands in all facets of the team,
but make no mistake, he was an incessant film watcher.
(34:47):
It was all about the product on the field. In fact,
if you were coaching for the Raiders, you were going
to be challenged and tested by a man who in
most cases had more experience coaching than you did. He
was a tremendous resource for young coaches like John Madden
who benefited from that partnership with the Super Bowl title.
And it's not a coincidence that younger coaches like Jon
(35:10):
Gruden the first time around, and even Mike Shanahan who
chafed at the quote unquote interference, were short lived with
the Raiders. When we come back, just when Baby the
origin story stay tuned now congratulated Raider management put together great,
(35:37):
great football team when they sure showed the day. Just
(36:01):
has there ever been a mantra more identified able with
one team then Al Davis's signature phrase said here. Following
the Raiders three Super Bowl win over Washington, it was
particularly sweet for Davis, who was receiving the trophy from
NFL Commissioner Pete Roselle, with whom Davis had just had
(36:21):
a lengthy court battle over Davis's desire and ability to
move the team to Los Angeles. Davis, just one baby?
How did that just win? Baby? Uh? Involved? Because that
just by itself seems very simple, but the way you
evolved to it, to me gives the meaning, gives that
phrase a lot more impact. I'd like you to explain
(36:43):
how that you got to that that just win baby? Well,
you know, all philosophy here the Raiders is not to
be afraid of failure. For even all our organizational people
who work in administration, public relations. If you're going to
be a self starter in life and you're gonna be
afraid of failure or fear of losing, you're not really
(37:04):
gonna be a positive person, a positive thinker, as far
as I'm concerned. And I felt that what was starting
to permeate professional football with three axioms one take what
they give you, two don't make mistakes, and three run
the ball to set up the passing game. Well, first
(37:26):
of all, I don't think that's true, because I think
you have to throw deep early, you have to attack early.
You have to show somebody that you can go up
on top early and put the fear of God on
the number. Two As I told you before, I don't
think it's take what they give you. I think you
have to have the ability to take what you want.
And number three, I don't think it's don't make mistakes.
(37:46):
I think everyone makes mistakes today the way we're judged,
we're so closely scrutinized, it's almost impossible not to make
a few other than you and I, Steve, But I
think I think you make mistakes. And I wanted to
permeate our football team was just win, play hard, try
(38:06):
not to make mistakes, but don't worry about mistakes, because
there's only one thing that counts, just win. And I
think if you look at every great football game, every
great team that wins a Super Bowl, you hear how
they played a perfect game, or they did this and that,
But God almighty, they made mistakes. They're just not as
noticeable when you win. Of all the things that have
(38:28):
written about you and been said in the media, which
is probably more than anybody in the game today, what
do you think is the biggest misconception the public has
of you? First of all, it's a difficult question. No,
I don't think. I really don't think it's difficult because,
first of all, uh, what I want to do and
(38:49):
what I wanted to do. I think I've I think
I've done as I said. I wanted to build the
finest organization in professional sports. I wanted to have the
best records. I wanted to do all the things as
a kid that I dreamed of. And I thank God
and my parents that they've given me inspiration, They've got
or has given me the ability to do all these things,
(39:09):
to build the rates into this, that we would get
the recognition that we do, and that I would get
what you might call the copy that I do now.
I think the public has tremendous respect for the Raiders,
and I think they know that I win, that I've
had the opportunity in the past few years. I know
you know this too. Go to the Whole of Fame
(39:31):
six times, I'll go a seventh. That's more than anyone
in the history of professional sports to present seven guys
at the Whole of Fame. So there must be some
loyalty there with the players. UM My coaches John Madden,
truly great coach, went over a hundred games and ten years.
Close friend Tom Flora's close friends. I think that there
(39:51):
are a few press guys who uh I have been
willing to take on in my time because I think
they get out of line, they get out of hand,
and they shouldn't. And I don't think that they should
dictate as to what's done in professional sports. I think
they should report what's happening, not not what we should do.
And I think that I'm pretty satisfied with my reputation.
(40:13):
I think there have been approximately eight to ten sports
books and written in the past six to ten years.
I get a chapter in each book, and every one
of them has been of course, I'm selling myself here
and I don't like to do that. It's been total complimentary. Question. Yeah,
but even even Howard, who have great admiration for Howard Cosell,
(40:34):
gave me a chapter and his approach to me was
that I was a young Cassius, I was a maverick,
and that was his observation of of of Al Davis.
There is one thing that disturbed me for a short
while in eight when we left Oakland to come to
Los Angeles. And I had a great deal of love
for Oakland because I had lived there some seventeen eighteen
(40:56):
years and uh, we had done tremendous day of the
fans were horrific. We filled that stadium and that's where
we built the radis this, no question about it. I've
never denied it and look forward to it and memory
have great memories, great nostalgia. But the press in the
Oakland area who lied to the public, tried to depict
(41:18):
me as the bad guy, when in essence, we proved
in court and I don't know, we don't want to
get in the court cases that it was Roselle the
National Football League And now the ironic thing about it,
it's funny how time is a great healer. O wounds
the fans up in the Bay Area, the will of
the people, and you never know what's gonna happen. Want
(41:39):
the rates back, and there's no denying it. I think
when we played there this year this past season, played
the forty nine is and to hear the roar of
the crowd, the rate of fans in that stadium, it
was just unbelievable. And and uh, I think that that
that thing has changed. The truth has come out, and
I kind of feel vindicated on that. And it was
(42:00):
through the courtroom and and through the emotional fans that
they realized that the UH, the National Football League and
some of the politicians in Oakland messed up that deal
and they shouldn't have done it. So other other than that,
I don't think when you're a focal point of our
society today that you can come away unscathed. It's it's
it's impossible. And I think if overall the good, the
(42:25):
tremendous amount of UH popular and what you would call
good publicity outweighs the the negativeness one, you just accept
that as a fact of our life, just like problems
are normal. That's normal. Interesting thing that the scouting that
the Raiders have done and there's no computers, there's no
that the vertical leads the i Q test, and you've
(42:46):
been so successful bringing in parts of what why haven't
you you used all these so called sophisticated computerized things
and you're scouting, and what do you rely on when
you pick a player? What are the things that you
look for? Well? Well, number one, as as I tell you,
I'm a great believer, and that you just don't pick
players for the way they play. Now. You pick players
(43:09):
for the way they're gonna be to three years down
the road, after you train them, after you fit them
into your system, after you have an idea of what
you wanted at every particular position. In our consistency in
this particular time of great players at certain positions is
known by all our scouts. They know him personally because
(43:31):
most everyone who scouts for us played for us, so
worked for us, so they know what we're looking for.
At left tackle, we're looking for d Shell. We can't
always find it, but that's what we're looking for. At
left end, we're looking for Cliff Branch. We can't always
find it, but that's what we're looking for. But uh,
I never have believed that i Q was the determining
(43:55):
fact that who's a great football player. In fact, when
I was young, I often wondered about education. I've always
thought that right people teach themselves. I always thought there
ought to be a place for the unintelligent to go
to school, and that maybe our educational system is a
little off at times that we don't teach the unintelligent.
(44:17):
And I've always thought that the Raiders, if we're going
to be great leaders and great teachers, we can take
players who have a will, who want to be great,
who may not be as smart as you'd like them
to be. But we can teach them and coach him
and get them to do things the right way even
if they don't have great i q s. And then
I have found through the years that certain kids who
(44:42):
have street i Q street instincts may not have basic
i Q, may be afraid of tests and don't do
as well on them because uh, just the fear of failure. Uh,
let's be honest about it. One of the great players
of our last ten years, Lester Hayes, came to the
(45:02):
Raiders with the label of being a dumby, but no
one knew that he stuttered. And the reason I can
talk about it is because he, after persuasion, admitted his problem,
went to place and worked on it and came along
excellent as far as stuttering goes talk very well and uh,
but everyone thought he was a dummy because he wouldn't talk,
(45:23):
he was afraid to take in tests. But as far
as the street smarts and football smarts and football instinct
I don't know if you're ever going to find a
smarter one. And as far as contract negotiations, he had
the instincts of of someone from Brooklyn that I might
have grown up with. But I just think it's overrated.
(45:44):
I think all that stuff is. I think you have
to be able to run fast. Unfortunately, once in a
while you come across someone who can play great and
make a contribution that doesn't have speed. But this is
a game of speed and size and power and viciousness
and violence and fear and uh. But I've never been
a big believer on on that total like you, because
(46:07):
I think that's our John. As tunnel visioned as Davis
was about football, he was knowledgeable and certainly opinionated about
a variety of subjects, as exemplified by his digression on
the American educational system, and in terms of football, he
was willing to learn aspects from other sports as well.
(46:28):
Earlier in the interview we heard him reference the press
defense from John Wooden's great U c l A teams.
In fact, Davis loved women's basketball, what he thought was
almost a purer form of the game, and he could
learn various aspects from that sport as well. As His protege,
Amy Trask told me of her long time boss and mentor,
(46:49):
he was not only intelligent, he was wise. Next week
we bring you part two of this truly remarkable interview
with Davis and Steve Sable. They'll talk about Davis's upbringing,
his thoughts on John Madden, and what he wanted his
legacy to be. It's the seasoned finale of Tales from
(47:09):
the Vault. You won't want to miss it. Thanks for listening.
I'm Andrea Kramer.
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