Safety Phillips Was on the Ball for the Raiders

Safety Charles Phillips played only five seasons for the Oakland Raiders and was a full-time starter for only one of them, but longtime members of Raider Nation will remember his impact.

Phillips, who was listed at 6-3 and 215 pounds but probably was considerably larger, was drafted by the Raiders in the second round (No. 45 overall) of the 1975 National Football League Draft out of USC after helping the Trojans win two national championships.

Phillips was a backup because the Raiders had the great combo of Jack Tatum and George Atkinson at safety. Still, it was very effective when other teams played a double-tight-end offense or went with three wide receivers.

“Even though he wasn’t often a starter, (Phillips) was very valuable to our team,” Coach John Madden said. “He could step in at any time and get the job done, which is always a big asset when you can bring someone like that off the bench.

“Phillips was always around the ball, made a lot of big plays including turnovers, and all you have to do is look at the numbers to see that.”

Phillips played in 67 games for the Raiders, starting only 23, but he made 19 pass interceptions to rank 11th in franchise history, returning them for 304 yards and two touchdowns. He also recovered seven fumbles and returned them for 159 yards and two scores, including a 96-yard fumble return for a touchdown against Houston in 1978, the second-longest in team history.

In addition, Phillips was a strong tackler, even though we don’t know how many stops he made because that was not an official National Football League statistic at the time.

“(Phillips) was like having an extra linebacker on the field, even though he could cover like a safety,” said Frank Cooney, who covered the Raiders for the San Francisco Examiner then and now owns The Sports Xchange.

“He portably was bigger than linebacker Phil Villapiano, who they listed at 225 pounds, but he had a huge wingspan, very large hands, and could make plays all over the field, covering a lot of ground. He was a big guy for being a safety and took advantage of that.

“It’s just too bad he got hurt, because he probably could have played for a long time.”

Phillips, who was a significant asset for the Raiders in winning Super Bowl XI over the Philadelphia Eagles, 27-10, at the end of the 1976 season, started all 16 games for the Silver and Black in 1978 and intercepted six passes that he returned for 121 yards and a 42-yard touchdown.

In addition, that season, he recovered three fumbles that he ran back for 127 yards and two scores, including that 96-yarder against the Houston Oilers.

Phillips did much the same when he was at USC.

During USC’s historic 55-24 victory over Notre Dame in 1974, he returned one of his three interceptions 58 yards for one of two touchdowns, earning the Theodore Gabrielson Award as the most outstanding player in the rivalry game that season.

“As I was running (for the touchdown), I thought I was dreaming,” Phillips reminisced in the days after the game. “Two touchdowns in one game and I hadn’t scored since high school.”

And yet, that wasn’t Phillips’ most incredible feat of the season. He plucked two fumbles out of the air and returned them both for touchdowns against Iowa weeks earlier. In doing so, he etched his name in the USC record book for return yardage in a game, with 181, and the highest average gain per return, at 90.5.

Phillips’ efforts in 1974, his senior season, gave him an NCAA record 302 interceptions yards that season, and he led the Trojans to another national title. That put him on their All-American Wall. He is sixth on USC’s all-time interception list with 13 picks.

It’s only too bad he couldn’t have played longer for the Raiders.

The Silver and Black open the regular season at the Denver Broncos on Sunday, September 10, at 4:25 p.m. EDT/1:25 p.m. PDT.

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