Bob Brown Made a Booming Impression on Raiders

Bob Brown was brought to the Oakland Raiders vis a trade and proved to be everything the Silver and Black hoped for.

Five-time first-team All-Pro tackle Bob “Boomer” Brown had a reputation even before he came to the Oakland Raiders in a trade with the Los Angeles Rams for fellow tackle Harry Schuh before the 1971 season.

Then the 6-4, 300-pound Brown made an impression on his new teammates on the first day of training camp at the El Rancho Tropicana Hotel in Santa Rosa, Calif., before he even played a down with Silver and Black.

“We had only meetings that first day and no practice, but what Boomer did opened everybody’s eyes about the type of person and player he was,” said guard Gene Upshaw, who like Brown went on to be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

“First, he went to our outdoor weight-lifting platform on the edge or our practice field and proceeded to lift huge amounts of weight without any real exhibition of effort. But what he did next really opened everybody’s eyes about what this guy was all about.”

Brown got up from his weightlifting spot and walked slowly across the field to one of the several wooden goalposts on the far side of the practice facility.

After reaching the padded goal post, Brown got down in his three-point stance and fired out to deliver a powerful forearm shiver. The goal post broke in half and hung there shivering as if waiting for more.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” said wide-eyed young tackle Henry Lawrence, a future star for the Raiders, as Brown turned and walked slowly back to the locker room as his new teammates mostly stared in disbelief.

Said Raiders Coach John Madden: “That kind of set the standard for who he was and what he was all about. He walked back in the locker room, and that was it (for the day).”

Brown also wowed his teammates when he took guns he owned to the back of the practice field during downtime and shot at blackbirds on the fence and in the trees behind, where there were only barren hills beyond. He did the same thing once on the road behind the Raiders hotel the day before a game against the Baltimore Colts.

Police officers came and asked Brown politely to put away his guns but did not charge him for what probably was a law-breaking offense, and he obliged.

Another day in Santa Rosa, Brown walked into the hotel room at the El Rancho that served as the Raiders' office during training camp and threw a couple of hundred dollars on the desk to pay a fine in advance, and proclaimed: “I’m going to miss curfew night.”

The money was accepted and nobody offered a word of dissent.

It would have been enough to boast three such dominant players on one offensive line, but then the Raiders acquired Brown to play alongside Upshaw, tackle Art Shell, and center Jim Otto, two other future Hall of Famers.

Thus, for three seasons (1971-73), they had four future immortals together. In fact, the Raiders had five future Hall of Famers on the line in 1971, when they also acquired tackle Ron Mix from the San Diego Chargers. That is the only line in NFL history to have five Hall of Famers at once.

And why would they?

“Bob Brown, I thought, changed our offensive line,” Hall of Fame Coach Madden said. “He was such a dominating player, and he was a guy I really felt taught our guys that it was OK for an offensive lineman to have a defensive lineman’s mentality. He was the most aggressive offensive lineman that I think I’ve ever seen. The most aggressive offensive lineman that ever played.”

“We never thought about the Hall of Fame at that particular time, but looking back, that’s a pretty damn good group,” Shell said. “ … I learned a whole lot from (Brown). A lot of little things, like how to formulate a plan to attack a defensive end, going into a game trying to have at least three ways to take this guy on.

“And he was as quick as anybody I’ve ever seen. He could come out of his stance on a pass set, leap off the ground like a frog, backwards, as quick as a hiccup, and then he would lash out at the defensive end. He was unbelievable.”

Brown wasn’t one of the originals, but helped to made complete what might have been the great offensive line of all time.

And the Raiders saw it coming at training camp in 1971.

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