It was never hard for me to dislike the Raiders. I grew up in the Bay Area of California in the 80s, and, like all of the other kids, I had a choice to make: red and gold or silver and black. I chose correctly and became a 49ers fan. Most of the kids on my street made the same choice. Most, but not all. Jesse was a Raiders fan and Zack, well, Zack chose option C — the Denver Broncos.
My neighborhood may have been pro-49er, but each stop on my long bus ride to school in the morning collected new Raiders fans, and by the time I got to school, I was outnumbered. It’s easy for us now to scoff at the idea of the Raiders being any good. Although they’ve beaten the Broncos in eight straight contests, the Raiders have been, for the last 20 years, almost a laughing stock.
But there was a time when the Raiders were the crown jewel of the newly formed NFL. The late Al Davis oversaw a period of Raiders excellence that had them in the playoffs in nine of 10 years, amassing three Super Bowl wins in seven years, from 1976 to 1983. The Broncos would not win their first until the late 90s, and so for many years, lived in the Raiders’ shadow.
When it comes to the Broncos/Raiders rivalry, the Raiders still have the upper hand, owning a 73-54-2 lifetime record against the Broncos. But when I played here in Denver, from 2003-2008, we were 9-3 against the Raiders. My coach at the time, Mike Shanahan, owned a regular season record of 21-7 vs. the Raiders, winning three out of every four.
Shanahan’s brief stint as Raiders head coach, in 1988 and 1989, had not ended well. Shanahan was fired a quarter of the way through his second season at the helm, and, as fate would have it, some years later, would become the head coach of the Raiders’ bitter rival, the Denver Broncos.
When I arrived here in 2003, the Broncos had established themselves as the new crown jewel of the league. Back-to-back Super Bowl championships and a…
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