Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

This is a single-season team that has fascinated me. Unexpected start and unexpected finish.

The Raiders had just moved back to Oakland from Los Angeles. New coach- Art Shell in, Mike White out.

They started strong at 8-2. They outscored opponents 129-41 over a three-week stretch (they hung 48 pts on a playoff team in Philadelphia, embarrassed the Kotite Jets on A nat. televised TNT game). The two losses were OT at Kansas City and a MNF loss at Denver (they had owned them during their LA days, but this was the start of a long run of Mike Shanahan owning them)

At worst, they seemed poised for a playoff spot in a wide-open AFC.

Then they lose to Dallas in a battle of 8-2 teams (remember, this was after the Cowboys shocking loss to the 49ers). Hosteler gets hurt.

Then a 12-6 MNF loss at San Diego. Then home losses to the Chiefs/Steelers. Then a no-show at Seattle. Then a blown lead to Denver.

And before you knew it, no playoffs and an epic collapse.

So here's what I'm curious about with this team:

1. How surprised were you by the 8-2 start?

2. Were they as good as the fast start indicated? Mike White surely had to be doing something right for 2.5 months, right?


3. How did it go from good to bad just like that in just a month and a half?


4. Had they made the playoffs, could they have done anything? They would have faced Buffalo in the AFC Wild Card game- surely, they would have allowed less than 341 rushing yards compared to the Dolphins.

I remember being more surprised by the 0-6 finish than the 8-2 start. The Raiders under Shell always seemed to be competitive (not great) and it looked at first like White would be able to take them to the next level. The Broncos hadn't yet reached their late 90s dominance so it looked (to me) that the division was theirs for the taking. I was actually expecting the Chiefs to fall off with a 35 year old starting RB and a 49ers castoff at QB. They quietly had the best scoring D in the league though.

I always thought it was interesting that both of the former LA teams started off hot that year then collapsed.

CSKreager wrote:Then they lose to Dallas in a battle of 8-2 teams (remember, this was after the Cowboys shocking loss to the 49ers). Hosteler gets hurt.

Then a 12-6 MNF loss at San Diego. Then home losses to the Chiefs/Steelers. Then a no-show at Seattle. Then a blown lead to Denver.

And before you knew it, no playoffs and an epic collapse.

3. How did it go from good to bad just like that in just a month and a half?


4. Had they made the playoffs, could they have done anything? They would have faced Buffalo in the AFC Wild Card game- surely, they would have allowed less than 341 rushing yards compared to the Dolphins.

3) Hostetler getting hurt is IMO the answer to this mystery. Al Davis kept Vince Evans as his backup QB for a number of years...I guess it was a precursor to JaMarcus Russell because Evans had a big arm but had been terrible in every team/system/league he had ever played in. He was even terrible in the 1987 Raiders replacement games, yet Davis felt compelled to keep him on for the next 9 years. When Evans saw starting action in 1995, he was 40 years old. The other reserve QB was untested Billy Joe Hobert. So it was probably bad timing in that not only did the Raiders have two terrible QBs as backups to Hostetler, one guy was at the very end of his career and the other guy was at the very beginning of his career. To his credit, Davis addressed this issue in the offseason by replacing Vince Evans with...David Klingler!

4) I just don't see an Evans/Hobert QB tandem doing anything in the postseason. They make Brister/O'Donnell seem like Montana/Young in comparison.