Redskins vs. Raiders
The Oakland Señors. Doesn’t instill the same sense of fear as Oakland Raiders does it? But in fact when Oakland was awarded an AFL franchise in 1960, fans overwhelmingly chose Señors as the team name. Fortunately, the owners of the new franchise overruled it and went with the runner-up, Raiders. It wasn’t until the team’s third year, when they hired former Chargers assistant Al Davis to be head coach and general manager, that the Raiders’ fortunes changed for the better. Oakland won the AFL title in 1967 and made it to the title game again in ‘68 and ’69. With a young John Madden as head coach, the Raiders were poised to be the dominant team of the AFL in the 1970s….and then the league folded and the Raiders joined the NFL.
The first time the Raiders welcomed the Washington Redskins to Oakland was an October night in 1970. This was the first ever Monday Night Football appearance for both teams. The extra day to prepare didn’t help the Redskins. On the first play from scrimmage, the Raiders scored on a 40-yard run. This was the first 40 of 226 yards rushing for the Raiders. Add to that three touchdown passes by Daryle Lamonica and the Raiders cruised to an easy 34-20 victory. The Redskins made it a game on a Charley Taylor touchdown to close it to 17-13, but the Raiders pulled away after that.
The Redskins and Raiders would meet again in 1975. The Raiders jumped to an early lead, but fortunately for the Redskins Oakland missed the extra point. Trailing 6-0, the Redskins came right back and tied it on a pass from Kilmer to Taylor. But, fortunately for the Raiders, Washington mixed the extra point. Trailing 9-6 in the second quarter, Oakland scored two touchdowns to go into the locker room with a 20-9 lead. The Redskins came back to send the game into overtime tied at 23. Scott Frost can breathe a bit easier after reading this next sentence. After Washington won the toss and failed to score, Mike Bragg’s punt covered 10 yards. 48-year old George Blanda, take that Ray Brown, kicked a 27-yard field goal to win the game.
Oakland won another close match-up in 1980 with a 24-21 win.
The first time Joe Gibbs faced the Raiders as head coach of the Washington Redskins was an October afternoon in 1983. Interceptions early in the game by Safety Curtis Jordan and Linebacker Mel Kaufman helped the Redskins jump out to a 10-0 lead. The Raiders came right back on a 99-yard pass from Jim Plunkett to Cliff Branch. The Redskins extended the lead to 20-7 in the third quarter. Then things got interesting. Plunkett connected on two touchdown passes to future Redskin Calvin Muhammad and a touchdown to Todd Christiansen. When Raider Greg Pruitt took a punt back 97 yards for a touchdown, Washington suddenly found itself down 35-20 with less than eight minutes left in the game.
The Redskins, unlike many fans at RFK that day, chose not to give up. After a 67-yard run after a screen pass by Joe Washington, Joe Theismann found Charlie Brown in the end zone to pull to 35-27. After Jeff Hayes’ line drive kick off forced a fumble the Redskins pulled even closer with a Moseley field goal to make it Raiders 35, Redskins 30. Unable to kill the clock the Raiders punted away to Washington with just under four minutes left in the game. Three straight completions to Charlie Brown put the Redskins at the Raiders’ six-yard line with 43 seconds left. On second down, Joe Washington snuck past everyone and Theismann found him in the end zone for the winning touchdown. Final score: Redskins 37, Raiders 35.
They would meet again several months later in Super Bowl XVIII. Over two decades later and I’m still not over that loss so I won’t go into great detail here about it. It was ugly from the start when Jeff Hayes’ punt was blocked and the Raiders recovered for a 7-0 lead. It got uglier when Jack Squirek closed the first half picking off a Theismann screen pass to Joe Washington and running it back to give Oakland a 21-3 halftime lead. It was the same Rocket Screen played that had led to Joe Washington’s 67-yard run back in October but this time Oakland was ready. And the game hit its nadir when Marcus Allen reversed field and blew past cornerback Anthony Washington for a 74-yard touchdown. The final nail in the coffin. Side note: I personally always felt Anthony Washington was just awful. I never understood what the team saw in him. Really, Walt Harris is Ronde Barber compared to this guy. Ok, back to the Rewind.
The Raiders would win Super Bowl XVIII 38-9. But what made the loss perhaps most frustrating for the Redskins and their fans was the fact that the 1983 Washington Redskins were arguably one of the greatest teams ever. They scored a then NFL record 541 points (over 30 a game!); their turnover ratio was a staggering + 48, and they lost two games by a combined total of two points. To say the team was awesome wouldn’t even do it justice.
Over the next several years the Redskins and Raiders would meet a couple more times until they met to close the 1992 season at RFK stadium. At 9-6, the Redskins controlled their playoff destiny. A win and they were in. A loss and they would need help. Luck seemed to be on their side when former Redskin and current Raider Jay Schroeder was knocked out in the second quarter, leaving the quarterbacking to 37-year old Vince Evans. With the Raiders down 13-7, Nick Bell scored on a five yard run to give the Raiders a 14-13 lead. Washington’s Ricky Ervins’ one yard touchdown run gave the Redskins a 20-14 lead with less than two minutes left. No problem for the ageless wonder as Evans hit Olympian Willie Gault on a 50-yard pass. Then, on 4th and goal with 13 seconds left, Evans found Tim Brown in the end zone for the 21-20 win. The game would prove to be Gibbs 1.0’s final regular season game. Even with the loss, the Redskins snuck into the playoffs as the last wild card entry.