IDK the coaching was pretty bad back then and the refs used to fuck us even harder back then. Something tells me we’d go to the playoffs every year and find a way to lose
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I can tell you with full confidence we don’t shit the bed against Buffalo and get embarrassed 51-3 in the AFC Championship
Jay Schroeder.
We had Jay Schroeder at QB. Our backup RB, pressed into service, was Marcus Allen.
Maybe we only lose 51-17?
I can’t stress how awful a QB Schroeder was. He was so very bad. Al loved him because he could throw it out of the end zone from his own goal line, and every so often Willie Gault would run under one and it would be great, but he was dogshit. We weren’t going anywhere with him.
The next few drafts were terrible at QB. We got Billy Joe Hobert, who had talent and won a natty at Washington, but made JaMarcus look like a student of the game.
Now Bo in the Hostetler years? Maybe we get back to the AFC championship.
1993, do we win the close Buffalo game in zero degree weather with Bo? Maybe we do. Are we allowed to beat the Joe Montan led Chiefs in the AFC championship? Maybe we are. But no way in hell we beat the Cowboys.
1994, the wheels were starting to come off, but RB was a hole. Remember, we got Bo for half the season and the playoffs. We had two one score losses. Either is a W and we make the playoffs at 10-6. Same story though- do we beat the 49ers? I’d have liked to have seen that game.
What if winning in the playoffs got us full-time Bo? Now there’s a thought. . .
If prime Al had 1 weakness as a GM, it was definitely at QB
Didn’t evolve with the league and not having a good QB cost us, big time.
Idk why the Raiders have never really valued the position but that needs to change
Al had a prototypical QB in mind. He wanted Daryl Lamonica’s arm. Didn’t matter what else came with it.
Schroeder, Jeff George, Kerry Collins, JaMarcus Russell. each one could throw 80 on his knees. None of them could play QB worth a shit.
I’m just glad we never had to have Jay Cutler on this team, because I guarantee you Al would have been in love with him.
In fairness we did have a qb on the same level as Cutler for a while
According to my Tecmo Super Bowl career, Jay Schroeder could easily go down as the best QB to ever lace em up.
Mine was McMahon on the Eagles.
At least 1 SB win, maybe more.
He was a phenom for the time. It’s a huge question mark for what he could have done, the records that might have been broken, would Marcus Allan have stayed as long as he did. Would the raiders have gone to and won another super bowl in that era? Who knows. Would have loved to see it though.
I think if we would’ve had Bo stay healthy and allowed Marcus to play, we would’ve won a Super Bowl or two, Bo Jackson, Marcus Allen, Tim Brown, Howie Long, all really great players, 3 HoFers, I really believe we would’ve won at least one Super Bowl
Marcus Allen played in the 1991 AFC championship. We lost by 48.
How dare you leave out Greg Townsend…
Or Steve Wisniewski, Terry McDaniel, Chester McGlockton, Willie Gault…
Oh ABSOLUTELY Greg Townsend, our all time sack leader, and unfortunately, one of the most forgotten players. Also Anthony Smith………… although he was a trash human being. I want to say Leional Washington, and there were a few others on defense who played in the late 80’s early 90’s that were really great too, but can’t think of any other names without being fearful of getting them mixed up with guys who played in the 70’s and 80’s
The problem with Bo is that it made Al think of Marcus as expendable…and Marcus was better. Bo had some amazing highlights but if you look at his full body of work, yards per carry, etc he just wasn’t on par with Marcus.
Could’ve been a great 1-2 combo(especially with Bo loving baseball and having to switch back and forth) but how it played out was really the beginning of the end.
Bo Jackson has a higher yards per carry average than Marcus Allen (5.4 to 5.0). He did that with no training camp or other prep, and after a full baseball season. If Bo Jackson hadn’t played baseball, he would have been the greatest RB of all time.
I was at his last game and I said to my buddy …oh shit,that looked bad, after him got tackled.The Raiders never recovered from that.They have been cursed since then.The way it eneded reaching the Superbowl was only more torture.
Bo is my favorite player of all-time, but how would him being healthy change our weird undying commitment to Jay Schroeder during that era?
I watched many Bo Jackson’s at the coliseum. He was so fast that he made it seem unfair. He was so powerful, when you added the speed he punished would be tacklers.
I was in the stands for so many incredible runs, but I was also in the stands for the playoff game against the Bengals when he injured his hip, even on that play he almost broke it for a TD, but you knew he injured himself because he awkwardly high knee stepped at the end of the tackle.Every time he got the ball the crowd knew we were about to see something special. Mind you all his skill on the field was after finishing the baseball season and not being in football shape.
There was a lot to cheer about in those LA Raider days, but Bo was God’s gift to the gridiron.
So the thing you have to remember about Bo Jackson through the eyes of those of us old enough to remember his career is there was no internet, no 24/7 sports cycle, less national TV access to games, etc. To us, Bo was a literal myth, a human highlight reel who did freakish things on the field. You are not likely to get an objective opinion on Bo from people that were there, it’s like asking a hardcore Christian what Jesus was like. I’m not surprised some people here think the Raiders would have won multiple SB’s if he’d stayed healthy.
The truth is more complicated - Bo liked football, but he LOVED baseball. He originally turned down NFL football altogether for baseball, the Tampa Bay Bucs offered him $7 million and he chose instead to sign with the Royals for $1 million.
His body was not going to survive many more seasons playing 162 MLB games then 8-10 NFL games then NFL playoffs. If he hadn’t hurt his hip, he’d probably have done another 1-2 seasons with the Raiders max then signed a long term baseball contract.
Other things to note - the Raiders were a poorly coached and GM’ed team at the time. They had what could have been the greatest 2 headed monster RB tandem ever but Al Davis had a personal vendetta with Marcus Allen and Bo was his way of getting back at Marcus
If Al didn’t have an issue with Marcus. Bo would be a fresh set of legs for playoff runs. Bo was just the fastest player on the field (4.2?) combined with his freakish power and size. It was a highlight reel every game he played.
How about how many more SB’s we would have had if he wasn’t there if Marcus Allen was still the starter. Bo didn’t do shit.
Minimally - at that time dallas or sf were clearly the best outfits and the bills the elite in the afc. A RB cannot make up for an inferior defense and QB and receiving group.
He was a physical outlier that played football as his second sport, managed to average 73 yards a game, thats 1171 yard season, that doesn’t trump Shroeder vs Jim Kelly, Steve Young, Aikman.
That was a wild year back to back games against Cincinnati the Bo gets hurt , then the beat down in Buffalo
