Raiders-49ers Rivalry Started Off the Field

The history between the Las Vegas Raiders and the San Francisco 49ers goes back over six decades, and we remember it on and off the field.

The Las Vegas Raiders return home to Allegiant Stadium for their final regular season games against two of their oldest rivals, the San Francisco 49ers, this Sunday and the AFC West rival Kansas City Chiefs a week later.

Of course, the Raiders-49ers rivalry didn’t start on the field, as the Oakland Raiders were charter members of the American Football League in 1960 and were battling with the Niners, established in the National Football League on the other side of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, for fans in the Bay Area.

And when the Raiders and 49ers finally played each other in 1967, it was during the pre-season, but with Northern California bragging rights at stake, both teams played like it was the regular season.

Hall of Fame center Jim Otto, known as the Original Raider who played all 210 regular season games in the first 15 seasons in franchise history before retiring in 1975, still remembers with anger some things that happened in those early years.

When he and other Raiders made public appearances during the early 1960s while trying to establish themselves across Northern California, some of the 49ers made fun of them and the new league. Otto couldn’t wait to get on the field against them.

In 1967, after the Pro Football Merger was announced, the Raiders were scheduled to play the 49ers for the first time, so a coin flip was held on June 16, 1967, at Treasure Island Naval Base, roughly halfway across San Francisco Bay via the Bay Bridge.

Captains Otto of the Raiders and defensive end Clark Miller of the 49ers represented their teams, and there was definitely tension in the air.

“If we had played the game that day, I would have kicked (Miller’s) butt,” Otto recalled years ago. “I was ready to go to war. I didn’t like the 49ers. They tried to make us feel inferior.”

Otto and the Raiders won the coin toss. The first game was played on Sept. 3, 1967, before 53,254 fans at the Oakland Coliseum, where the Silver and Black seemed about to win before star running back Clem Daniels fumbled the ball away while about to score the game-winning touchdown, and the 49ers held on for a 13-10 victory.

A year later, the Raiders got their revenge when quarterback Daryle Lamonica threw two touchdown passes and outplayed Oakland native John Brodie, the 49ers quarterback, as the Raiders claimed a 26-19 victory at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco.

Hundreds of Raiders fans who made the trip from Oakland in a convoy of buses to the game at Kezar in Golden Gate Park celebrated like they had won a playoff game on the way home and into the wee hours at bars and nightclubs in the Eastbay.

“(Raiders vs. 49ers) was big,” said Raiders Hall of Fame tackle Art Shell, who also had two stints as head coach of the Silver and Black. “It was bigger for the fans than it was for us but believe me, it was big for the players, too.

“It was big for us because in the off-season, for one thing, we would play basketball (on teams that raised money for charity at local high schools) against them, too. So you had to have a little bit of bragging rights.”

The 49ers beat the Raiders, 17-3, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco in 2011. Still, the preseason series was canceled for more than 10 years because at that game, one Raiders fan was beaten in a restroom, and another man wearing a shirt that read, “F--- the Niners,” was shot multiple times in the stomach in the parking lot and was fortunate to survive.

The Raiders and 49ers finally played another preseason game in 2021 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, when the Niners claimed a 34-10 victory to take a 21-19 lead in that series, while the long-time rivals are 7-7 in the regular season games played since the AFL-NFL merger became complete in 1970.

The Silver and Black won five of the first seven games in the regular-season series. However, the 49ers have won four of the last five, including a 34-3 victory in 2018 at Levi’s Stadium, where Daniel Carlson of the Raiders kicked a 37-yard field goal to open the scoring. Still, the Niners dominated the rest of the way as quarterback Nick Mullens passed for 262 yards and three touchdowns.

Quarterback Derek Carr of the Raiders completed 16-of-21 passes for 171 yards without a touchdown or an interception in that game but was sacked seven times.

The Raiders and 49ers have never played in the post-season, but had that happened in those early years, the Bay Area would have been a madhouse.

The Raiders' game against the 49ers is Sunday, New Year's Day, at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas and kicks off at 4:05 p.m. EST/1:05 p.m. PST. It can be seen on FOX.

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