1960s Raiders Set the Tone for Franchise Expectations

The 2023 Las Vegas Raiders must live up to a standard established by the 1960s Silver and Black.

The 1960s Oakland Raiders, even though they weren’t perfect for the first few seasons, were responsible for starting the process that made the team one of the greatest franchises in pro sports history.

In addition to practicing and playing games, those Raiders made regular public appearances all over Northern California. They did interviews on radio and television from the early days of the team’s history in 1960.

“We traveled all over Northern California, all the way down to Fresno and up north, even to Reno, Nev., to let people know what the Raiders were all about,” running back Clem Daniels recalled several years ago.

“We told people that we played a different brand of football than the San Francisco 49ers and the National Football League. We played wide-open offense, threw the ball down the field, and had an explosive running game.

“We wanted to be different than the 49ers, and we were. That was a good thing for our fans.”

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 during those public appearances in the early years.

When Otto and other Raiders made public appearances during the early 1960s while trying to establish themselves across Northern California, some 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 tension in the air.

“If we had played the game that day, I would have kicked (Miller’s) butt,” Otto recalled several 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, so the first game between the teams 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. The 49ers held on for a 13-10 victory.

Even though it was a preseason game, both teams played like it was for real.

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.

Thousands of Raiders fans who took buses to the game celebrated all the way home across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and well into the night at clubs in Jack London Square and all over the Eastbay.

The Raiders and 49ers had basketball teams that played charity games in the offseason, and the rivalry carried over.

“(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 against them, too. So you had to have a little bit of bragging rights.”

The Raiders were 6-8, 2-12, and 1-13 in their first three seasons before Al Davis came to Oakland in 1963 and turned the team around with a 10-4 record, including their first two victories over the rival San Diego Chargers, who many people believed was the best team in pro football that season.

In 1967, the Silver and Black went 13-1 and reached Super Bowl II, where they lost to the Green Bay Packers, 33-14, at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Fla.

However, the Raiders had put Oakland on the professional sports map by then.

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