1976 Raiders: Finding championship formula

(Editor’s Note: See preview. This is part five in a series tracking the Oakland Raiders through a dramatic 1976 season to their first Super Bowl Championship, No. XI — 50 years ago. Frank Cooney was with the team every day and linebacker Phil Villapiano, a key in the team’s change to a 3-4 defense, relive that adventure week by week. After looking at some of the well-known stories about the Raiders’ off-campus night life, we now settle into the real reason the team was assembled — to mold a football team. Hall of Football is not affiliated with the Pro Football Hall of Fame)

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(Following is an excerpt from a book by the Professional Football Researchers Assocation on the 1976 Oakland Raiders, scheduled to go on sale later this year. This is from a chapter on John Madden, by Frank Cooney)

SANTA ROSA, 1976 — As the morning sun filtered through Sonoma’s blue gum eucalyptus, John Madden stepped out of his ground-floor room at the El Rancho Tropicana, cracked open his first diet soda of the day and semi-officially opened the Raiders 1976 training camp.

On tap: eight intense weeks to rebuild the franchise’s winning DNA.

For seven summers he turned this dusty backlot into a proving ground—part football boot camp, part carnival—shaping rogues and renegades into champions. Seven straight playoff berths, four AFC title-game losses, the last two against Pittsburgh, all created a restless conviction that this year had to be the one.

In the wake of the 1975 AFC championship-game loss to the Steelers, Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler threw gas on the fire by declaring “next year we are going to win it all.” And when Snake spoke, it made headlines everywhere.

In the back of the El Rancho, a football field was surrounded by an eight-foot-tall white fence. In the middle of the night, the tick-tick of water sprinklers pretended to maintain some semblance of green grass. Beyond that field, barely off campus, was a small shack, The Bamboo Room, where players and some coaches grabbed a couple of quick beers after practice.

Madden’s journey to this sun-parched workshop began on a 60x40-foot dirt patch next to his Daly City home—Madden’s Lot—where he and John Robinson spent dawn to dusk inventing games and vowing to be famous professionals.

As the coach sucked down that diet soda, he heard Robby warning about feeding an ulcer. But it was an echo in his mind. Robinson left as Raiders running backs coach to take over USC from John McKay. It was one of many losses Madden knew was coming this season and he already missed Robby as his trusted confidant.

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It was no secret the Raiders were in for a rough road in 1976 with injuries and departures that remain historic. It was the first season without center Jim Otto. George Blanda was literally kicked off the team to end the longest playing career in NFL history. We will get into those and more details throughout the series. Meantime, let’s follow up Madden’s camp opening with the perspective of players, through Phil Villapiano, in chapter 11 of his book, Just Tackle, Baby.

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GOING INTO 1976, GUYS WERE SO FRUSTRATED. WE HAD WON FOUR straight division titles and failed to make the Super Bowl every time. Today, if you make it deep into the playoffs for four straight years without making a Super Bowl, there are big changes. Coordinators get fired. Guys leave through free agency or are cap casualties and get cut. Even the head coach might get fired.

We had none of that. Going into 1976, with few exceptions, the core of our team remained constant since 1973. The other teams didn’t change much either. We had to find a way to succeed where we had previously failed. We had the talent to win it all, we just needed something to put us over the top.

On the first day of training camp, Madden took the podium, welcomed everyone back, and, rather than introduce anything new, he simplified everything.

“We’re gonna play Cover 1 and Cover 3,” he said. “We’re gonna run 16

Bob and 18 Lead. We’re gonna run just a few basic pass plays. And that’s it. We’re gonna tell everybody what we’re gonna do, dare them stop us, and we’re gonna win the Super Bowl.”

That speech was one of his best. We never knew which way John would go, simplifying was genius. We loved that. That was Raiders’ football. Here we come. Fuck you. You can’t stop us.

We all knew it would never be that simple and it would take tons of hard work, but just to see John had gotten over the Championship Game loss to the Steelers in 1975, picked everyone up from the shit feelings we all had. Everybody got on board. “Now,” he said. “That’s it for the team meeting. Be ready to go tomorrow.” Everyone clapped and we were off to the Bamboo Room to play Pass the Pitcher.

When we lost in 1972 on the Immaculate Reception, we were mad, but we knew there would be more opportunities. But when it happens year after year, you begin to think negatively. We had to clean up that thinking. As good as we were, we put our own backs up against the wall. There were 25 other teams around the league that would have loved to have had our success. But as Raiders, we were not satisfied.

The writers talked about us not being able to win the big one. The fans talked about it. We heard it, and maybe after a while, there was some bad thinking going on. That is when a great coach takes over. Madden’s speech that day was just what we needed to hear. “Let’s forget the past and let’s start new.”

Perfect.

John never got enough credit for our success. We had some big person- alities, and we had Al Davis, who could dominate any situation, but Madden was an incredible coach. You’d see him on the sidelines, yelling and carrying on with his shirt pulled out and sideline pass flapping in the breeze, but he was no joke. Madden’s big persona later turned into TV commercials, and he became incredible on TV doing game commentary. He became larger than life. What’s lost in that, in my opinion, is how hard he prepared. During the week, nothing was ever overlooked. He made sure that he and his coaching staff would never lose us a game. ….

The press didn’t know what went on during the week and they made it look like Madden was Al Davis’s puppet. That was bullshit. John was a brilliant head coach because he knew his players and he treated them like individuals. He knew what to say and to whom. He didn’t waste words. When he took you aside, you would shut up and listen.

Before the 1976 season, he really had us thinking we could do it. Right when we felt that we were unstoppable, the injuries hit.

We lost three top defensive linemen before the season even started. Tony Cline, Horace Jones, and Art Thoms were all injured and out for the year. Gone. That left us with Dave Rowe (who had been a backup the previous year) at defensive tackle, Otis Sistrunk (who could play tackle or end), and rookies Herb McMath and Charlie Philyaw. In the NFL you can’t win without a defensive line, so we had to do something drastic very quickly.

Philyaw was our top pick that year. He was seen as a project, not an imme- diate starter. Charlie was a giant at 6’9”, but: A) he was a rookie, and B) he had no idea what to do on a pro football field. During the preseason against Dallas, I’m out there and I hear “Foo! Foo! What do I do, Foo?” It was Charlie. He was lost. So now I’m telling him what to do on every play with Rayfield Wright across the line licking his chops. Charlie was one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to be around, but he was not an elite pro football player.

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Next: We go behind the scenes of the most consequential changes in strategy and personnel in pro football history. … How defensive coach Don Shinnick, a recent pro linebacker himself, reshaped and inspired the four-man linebacker crew and how Al Davis reached out for John Matuzsak, twice rejected that preseason already, and, most significantly, how Madden and his teammates maximized the Tooz. … when he was on the field, anyway.

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This series is co-produced by former linebacker Phil Villapiano, the self-acclaimed voice of Raider history. He is ready, willing and very able to discuss the Raiders at all times. Just try to shut him up! He gathered his best material in a recently-published book, Just Tackle, baby! A must read.

Phil Villapiano’s memoir is titled Just Tackle, Baby! Living life the Raiders’ way, co-authored by NFL Films’ Todd Schmidt. The book is now on sale.

The 256-page hardcover memoir illuminates Villapiano’s time playing under legendary head coach John Madden. It delves into his career as a four-time Pro Bowl linebacker, key moments in 1970s NFL history, and his famous rivalry and enduring friendship with Franco Harris.