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I would like to see the Vikings stay in MN, they can't move for this season as the deadline has past but hard to say what will happen next year. They could go to LA and St. Louis could move to NFC North to replace them.
I would like to see the Vikings stay in MN, they can't move for this season as the deadline has past but hard to say what will happen next year. They could go to LA and St. Louis could move to NFC North to replace them.
This has all been part of our master plan to back-fill the Vikings vacancy with the Rams in the "2013 approved stadium" and gain our long-awaited Super Bowl Trophy.
I would like to see the Vikings stay in MN, they can't move for this season as the deadline has past but hard to say what will happen next year. They could go to LA and St. Louis could move to NFC North to replace them.
That would end some rivalries with the Rams and the rest of the NFC West. That's sort of why some people wanted the Rams to move BACK to L.A., keep the Vikings in Minnesota, and move the Jags to St. Louis.
But, not everyone is an NFL franchise owner.... unless you live in Green Bay.
of all places-Irwindale! You'd have to go to Irwindale to see what I mean there!
Mind if I make an attempt at describing the gleaming metropolis called Irwindale?
Middle of nowhere in SoCal. Surrounded by a whole lot of nothing. Hot. Very smoggy. The principal industry is digging rocks out of the ground. If more than 2,000 people actually live there I'd be surprised.
Davis weaseled $10 million out of the city just by saying he MIGHT move the Raiders there.
Shortly after he pocketed the money he skedaddled back to Oakland. Lord, I felt sorry for the taxpayers there.
DewDropInn is right all the way down the line here.
Google in Irwindale Wikipedia, a good story on this issue appears there. Irwindale is noted mainly for rock quarries, the sand and gravel industry anchors down there. It's halfway between I-10 and I-210, just a few miles from Azuza. And I looked it up just a bit ago, there are just over 1000 people living in Irwindale.
One of the games I went to that I mentioned previously in post #169 was in 1988. There was a couple of guys selling black and silver "Irwindale Raiders" t-shirts and ball caps for cheap in the parking lot. One guy was selling "Irwindale Flintstones" jerseys with the Raider logo on it. I should have bought one! It had Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble on it downing some suds!
Why did the Raiders leave LA in the first place ? Did they go there just to prove a point knowing they would be in Oakland soon enough anyway ?
Noob enough question I know but the last time I actually watched a lot of NFL is when the Raiders were actually in LA. When it went off of the TV I had no idea they were in Oakland for a few years.
I actually don't understand why Oakland had a team in the first place. The Bay Area isn't large enough to support two NFL teams. Hell, I'm surprised they can even support one.
I actually don't understand why Oakland had a team in the first place. The Bay Area isn't large enough to support two NFL teams. Hell, I'm surprised they can even support one.
That was the opinion when Oakland first became a franchise in 1960 when the American Football league was getting off the ground. They were close to losing their franchise in 1962 as they had only won one game that year. Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson loaned the Raiders organization close to a half million dollars to keep it afloat and make payroll.
They actually weren't on the list to be involved at all with the new football league, Minnesota was. The NFL owners got wind of the "new league" and they set out to put the kibosh on the AFL when Lamar Hunt made the announcement that he found several owners to start his own football league after being denied trying to join the NFL with the application of an expansion franchise. Minnesota was granted a franchise in 1961. At the last minute Oakland was included in the eight team pack.
The loan was important to the future of the club and so was the acquisition of a first class renegade who was an assistant coach for Sid Gilman's San Diego Chargers, and that individual would be Al Davis. In 1962 the Raiders finished at 1-13. Al Davis left the Chargers, became head coach at Oakland and coached them to a 10-4 record in 1963. The Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs and the San Diego Chargers had the best won-loss records in the history of the AFL, and the Raiders finished third with a 77-58-5 record.
Coming into the merger Oakland had winning seasons all the way from 1970 to 1981. They won 3 super bowls from 1976 to 1983. For a long time the Oakland Raiders, like them or not, were in the upper echelon in the NFL. The San Francisco 49ers, on the other hand struggled from 1974 until winning the Super Bowl in 1981.
And the rest (regarding the last 30 years) I believe everyone knows how that turned out for Oakland as well as San Francisco.
Regarding whether Oakland deserves to have a team now, well let the talking heads of the media yammer about that. There has been so much turmoil, back biting, bad drafting, etc., etc., that I can understand in a way what is up with that organization. Regarding DewDropInn's observation about the Irwindale franchise fiasco, by that time most, if not all of the NFL owners thought Al Davis was close to losing his marbles.
The rest, as they say, is history, sad as it is to report.
I'll add that the plan with the Irwindale stadium was to use one of the old rock quarries. They were not going to build an above-ground, normal stadium. The stadium would have been built inside one of the abandoned quarries that dot the landscape there. (Landscape being a generous word for miles and miles of sand and rocks.)
Sitting in a hot pit when it's 105 degrees to watch a football game. Yes, we were all going to pay good money do that.
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