There are three Lombardi trophies in the Raiders’ trophy case. They were one of the NFL’s premier dynasties at one time. How do they stack up against other NFL dynasties? Football Outsiders set about ranking them.
FO ranked a total of 56 NFL dynasties. The Raiders hold two spots on the list. They separate the teams from 1967-77 and 1980-85.
The 1980-85 teams put two of those Lombardi trophies in the Raiders’ case. But that was somehow only good enough to land them at 53 in the rankings. They like the other team much better, placing them in the top ten at 8th overall.
What happened in 1967 to start the Dynasty? Well, that was the year Al Davis took over as part-owner and GM and when the Raiders appeared in Super Bowl II (which they would lose to the Packers).
This 11-year run kind of smashes two Raiders teams together, though it’s a continuous stretch with enough similarities to make it track easily enough. The first is the AFL version, coached by John Rauch. Davis went and grabbed Daryle Lamonica to replace Tom Flores as quarterback in 1967, and the Raiders leapt from an 8-win team to a 13-win team overnight. That 1967 team was the one that got to Super Bowl II, with Lamonica-to-Fred Biletnikoff providing the offensive firepower, and Willie Brown (who had just been traded to Oakland) helping lead the defense to a -26.0% estimated DVOA, 16th-best all-time. While acknowledging the same AFL-to-NFL issues that make judging teams from the younger league difficult, we still have to point out that the 1967 Raiders had a 44.3% estimated DVOA, which would be the eighth-best total in history, and would have made them favorites over Vince Lombardi’s Packers (30.1% estimated DVOA) if we take the numbers at face value. They ended up losing quite badly, and becoming the runners-up would become an ongoing theme — they lost the AFL Championship Game each of the next two seasons to the eventual Super Bowl champion Jets and Chiefs.
The Rauch/Lamonica era would yield seamlessly into the Madden/Stabler era as the Raiders remained an NFL powerhouse.
Madden was young and inexperienced, having just been a position coach the year before, but Davis liked him enough to give him a shot to run the team. Madden responded by never having a losing season, winning the division in seven of his ten years, and having the best winning percentage of anyone in NFL history with at least 100 games coached. So yeah, that worked out OK.
Having a dominant and menacing defense went a long way to keeping the momentum throughout those years. As did having a mauling offensive line.
With all this talent at their disposal, the Raiders made a habit of … being the villain eventually dispatched by the champ, losing to the eventual Super Bowl champion Jets, Chiefs, Colts, Dolphins, and Steelers (twice) in six championship games between 1968 and 1975. They finally, finally got to be the ones laughing last in 1976, taking advantage of an injured Steelers team to get to the Super Bowl, and beating the NFC’s perennial runner-up Vikings to bring home their first Lombardi trophy.
Most Raiders fans probably are thinking 8th best is way too low, let along the other team landing at 53.
There’s only room for one champion in any season, and far too often, it wasn’t the Raiders. They never led the league in estimated DVOA throughout the 1970s, and lost conference championship games seven times. Reaching nine AFL/AFC championship games in 11 seasons is crazy-good considering the level of competition they faced, which is why they rank as high as they do — they are the highest-ranking team with just one championship to their name. Flip some of those results, make more Super Bowls, and the Raiders could have been in the top five.
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