Oakland Raiders: NFL Owners Vote To Get Over On Al Davis One Last Time

The Oakland Raiders got the short end of the stick as NFL owners voted to get over on Al Davis one last time in allowing Rams, Chargers into LA, freezing the Raiders out.

A quick look at the scoreboard shows that it’s Jerry Jones: 1, Oakland Raiders: 0.

As we all know by now, the NFL owners meeting in Houston concluded with a vote to allow Stan Kroenke and the Rams to basically control the Los Angeles market. Oh sure, the Chargers have the option to join forces with Kroenke, but it will most likely put them in a subordinate position to the Rams. It’s a position Dean Spanos tried to avoid by originally joining with Mark Davis.

But the owners, in all their wisdom, opted to give LA to Kroenke and his seemingly endless pile of cash. Of course, it wasn’t without more shady back room dealing, skullduggery, and back stabbing than you’ll see in an average episode of Game of Thrones and House of Cards combined.

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You have to give it to Jerry Jones though. It was his deft, Machiavellian maneuvering put Kroenke and the Rams in the driver’s seat and screw over Spanos and Davis. Hey, if Jones can’t get wins on the field, he seems just as happy to take them off the field, we suppose.

Jones’ plea to the other owners seemed to be a simple one – giving LA to Kroenke and the Rams will make you rich(er) and include a lot of freebies. Because, billionaires like to collect dollars like kids enjoy collecting baseball cards. And hey, who doesn’t love free stuff?

It was a simple, but effective pitch though. If only his team could have that sort of success on the field.

It seemed like a great day for fans in the East Bay who are invested in keeping the Raiders where they belong – in Oakland. In the wake of the vote which froze the Raiders out of LA, fans celebrated wildly, according to some reports.

"“The NFL’s announcement Tuesday that the Oakland Raiders will stay in their current home sent waves of jubilation through Ricky’s Sports Theatre and Grill, often touted as ground zero of Raider Nation.Glasses clinked in the air, fans bought rounds of drinks, and one woman walked into the bar with tears gleaming in her eyes, said bartender Andrew Nelson.“It was looking like a dark road where we were headed,” said the bar’s owner, Ricky Ricardo, 54. “And it turned into a bright, sunny day.”"

When the Raiders withdrew their relocation bid, many took it as a sign that Davis got a “golden parachute” to give up the fight – meaning, help getting a deal done in Oakland. That golden parachute though, turned out to be made of nothing more than spray painted tin foil.

$100 million dollars in further assistance to the team to help build a new stadium. While receiving a check for $100 million would send most of us into wildly spastic celebrations, we’re not trying to build a new stadium. That $100 million is a pittance and does little to help close the funding gap Davis needs to close if he wants build a new stadium in Oakland.

With Davis pledging $300 million of his own money, $200 million from the NFL’s G4 loan program, and the “incentive” of another $100 million the Raiders will get to help them build a new stadium, that still leaves a hole of $300 million the Raiders would have to fill before they could theoretically break ground.

And oh yeah, they still have to work out a deal with spineless and intransigent politicians in the city of Oakland and Alameda County before they can even think about theoretically breaking ground. Although Oakland Mayor Libby Schaff has floated the idea that they are now open to making certain concessions to the team, the city and the Raiders are still far apart on their lists of wants and needs to make a deal happen.

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Indeed, Schaff and the Oakland politicos seem more interested/determined to make Lew Wolff and the Oakland A’s happy than they do the Raiders.

It seems baffling that Jones, who had a great relationship with the late Al Davis and whom many believed was something of a mentor figure to him, would take the opportunity to screw over Mark. He used his power and influence among the owners to twist enough arms to make his proposal – Rams/Chargers in Inglewood – a reality. And clearly, Jones’ influence is so strong that even a well liked and respected figure like Spanos had his supporters jump ship when the Cowboys’ owner snapped his fingers – a betrayal that can’t sit well with Spanos.

And in the end, the Raiders are the ones left out in the cold. The ones left scrambling. And the ones left without a place to call home. They have the league’s absolute worst stadium situation by far. It’s not even close. Quick, name another team in the league who has to use duct tape and plastic cups to fix leaks. Name another team that has to deal with raw sewage flooding their locker rooms. Name another team that has to deal with the myriad of problems the O.co Coliseum has. Spoiler alert – the answer is none.

The Raiders must deal with city officials without the political will to help the keep the team long term and no viable path at present to solving any of their problems. And fans are stuck with an outdated, beat up, run down, dilapidated stadium.

For a league who says they are absolutely focused on enhancing the fan experience at the games, they certainly don’t seem to give a rat’s backside about the fan experience in Oakland.

But hey, at least Jerry Jones and the other billionaire boys club that is NFL ownership are going to make a ton of cash in relocation fees and revenue sharing from Kroenke’s state of the art facility that is going to make money hand over fist for a while.

For those who believe the league still carries a vendetta against the Raiders for the thorn in the paw that Al Davis was for a long time, it’s not too difficult to believe that the team’s relocation petition was never seriously being considered. The fact that Jerry Jones was able to put a proposal that froze the Raiders out on the table in the days before the vote – and have the vote break his way – certainly adds fuel to that fire.

Next: Raiders May Be Little Matchstick Girl In Relocation Fight

And if you believe that, it wouldn’t be very difficult to believe that some of the petty – and greedy – officials in the league offices as well as the NFL’s body of owners, are secretly delighting in the pickle Davis and the Raiders are in right now.

Nor would it be too difficult to believe that Roger Goodell and some of his cronies are still laughing, patting each other on the back and raising a celebratory glass at having gotten over on the ghost of Al Davis one more time.

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