Nelson's Tenure with the Raiders had a Double Ring to It

When great Las Vegas, Oakland, and Oakland Raiders are discussed there is one name often overlooked that shouldn't be: Bob Nelson.

Linebacker Bob Nelson is yet another player who made the most of his relatively short time with the Oakland-Los Angeles Raiders, playing a key role for the Silver and Black when they captured Super Bowls XV and XVIII.

The 6-4, 232-pound Nelson was selected in the second round (No. 42 overall) of the 1975 NFL Draft out of Nebraska by the Buffalo Bills, where he played three seasons before being with the San Francisco 49ers for two years ahead of coming to the Raiders in 1980.

“Nelson was a very solid player often overshadowed by great linebackers on his own team, such as Hall of Famer Ted Hendricks, Rod Martin and Matt Millen, who received much of the credit as the Oakland and then Los Angeles Raiders won two Super Bowls in the early 1980s,” Bleacher Report wrote.

“But Nelson was definitely not bringing up the rear in comparison.”

Nelson was a tackling machine from his inside linebacker spot, but the statistics don’t reflect that because tackles were not an official NFL stat in those days, but he had seven sacks, a pass interception, and a fumble recovery in his four full seasons with the Raiders, missing the 1981 season because of an injury.

In 1980, Nelson missed seven games due to injury; in those seven games, the Raiders went 3-4. With him, they were 8-1 and he made three sacks, before they won four playoff games, including Super Bowl XV, 27-10, over the Philadelphia Eagles at the Louisiana Superdome as he made three solo tackles and helped limit running back Wilbert Montgomery to 44 yards in 16 carries.

Injuries forced Nelson to miss all of the 1981 season and the Raiders missed the playoffs for the first time in a decade with a 7-9 record, but he has back the next year and so were the Silver and Black, as they had the best record in the NFL at 8-1 in the strike-shortened season before being upset by the New York Jets, 17-14, in the second round of the playoffs.

However, it all came together again for the Raiders in 1983, when they went 12-4 in the regular season, beat the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks in the first two games of the playoffs before demolishing the favored Washington Redskins, 38-9, in the playoffs.

Nelson's finest hour was typically done without much fanfare as he made six unassisted tackles while filling the gaps as the Raiders limited the NFL’s Most Valuable Player, fullback John Riggins, to 64 yards on 26 carries in the Super Bowl.

“(The top) was probably two Super Bowl rings that say, ‘World Champions’ on them,” Nelson said of his career. “You can’t have much more of a highlight than those. I never considered myself a famous guy. I was a kid who was obviously born with some size and speed … and was in the right place at the right time. Back then it was just a matter of playing, going home, and working in the off-season.”

That included at Nebraska, where he started for three seasons, made All-Big Eight Conference, played in the Senior Bowl and the College All-Star Game, and made nine tackles as the Cornhuskers dominated Texas, 19-3, in the 1971 Cotton Bowl.

But Nelson, who retired after the 1985 season, saved his very best for the two seasons in which the Raiders won Super Bowls XV and XVIII.

In 2000, Nelson was one of six inaugural inductees to the St. Croix Valley Athletic Hall of Fame in Minnesota, where his excellence on the football field in high school, college, and the NFL was cited.

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