Al Davis Dead Again

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| Published Oct 25, 2011

Story by Cory Soukup

The Oakland Raiders played in the Super Bowl against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on January 27, 2003. New documents reveal that this was also the day Raiders owner Al Davis passed away. Despite the Raiders being down 20-7 at halftime, Davis was reportedly in high spirits, saying he “didn’t care” because he was “so excited to see No Doubt perform at halftime.”

Davis’ favorite band took the stage, but before they could even finish “Just a Girl,” he had died. Not wanting to upset the team in the biggest game of their lives, no one was told of the incident. Family and Raiders staff quickly put a pair of sunglasses on Davis and propped him up.
This charade would continue for 8 more years, until October, 8 of this year when Davis was officially announced dead. His son Mark Davis explained the decision.

“It just became really hard to convince people Dad was still alive. Every day I’d have to get new sunglasses for him and tie new strings to his arms, legs and head. We were wasting millions of dollars on puppeteers when that money should have been going to better players. And don’t even mention how much we spent on easy-to-slip-on tracksuits.”

It’s true that since Al Davis’ death the Raiders have struggled. In the seven seasons since the former owner’s death the team has a 35-92 record and has hired five different coaches.
“Coaches were always difficult to keep around,” Mark Davis explained. “They’d usually figure out what we were doing after a season and threaten to tell the media, so we had no choice but to fire them and pay them not to talk. Like the time Dad was in a meeting with Tom Cable, doing one of his, ‘look I’m dancing so that means I can’t be dead’ routines. And Cable said, ‘Guys, seriously? He’s clearly dead. You really don’t have to do this, it’s really uncomfortable. Can we please discuss what we’re going to do about JaMarcus Russell?’ When Dad wouldn’t stop dancing Cable just walked out.”

The Raiders have also struggled to acquire good players in the draft. Since Al Davis’ death, their first round picks have included JaMarcus Russell, Robert Gallery, Fabian Washington, and Michael Huff, all considered busts.

“Draft days were especially frustrating,” Mark Davis recollected. “We would have everyone on staff working hard to make Dad look alive and healthy for the cameras. We’d spend so much time moving him around, making him look like he was thinking, that by the time it was our turn to pick we just kind of took whoever.”

To this day, doctors still can’t explain what killed Al Davis. He had so many diseases that they are unable figure out which one ultimately did him in. They have it narrowed it down to a few, however, the leading candidates being Black Pox or a rare form of Rickets that doctors are calling Al Davis Disease

Mark Davis hopes that, now that this whole ordeal is over, the Raiders can finally start winning some games.

“Raider fans have put up with too many poor decisions. We need to start being progressive and looking towards the future.”

Mark is reportedly negotiating with Steve Jobs about the Apple founder’s being the new owner of the team.