Raiders-Chargers Has Given Fans Their Money's Worth
The Las Vegas Raiders and Raider Nation owe their franchise to the arch-rival Los Angeles Chargers, in more ways than one.
When the American Football League was in the process of being founded ahead of the 1960 season, the AFL franchise that was supposed to go to Minneapolis was stolen away by the established National Football League and became the Minnesota Vikings.
The AFL was down to seven projected franchises, but Chargers owner Barron Hilton wanted to have another team in California to give his team a natural rival, in addition to wanting to have a short trip for at least one road game since the closest teams in the league to Los Angeles were the Denver Broncos and Dallas Texans.
With Hilton’s influence, the Oakland Raiders were born, which turned out to be a good thing for the Chargers immediately in more ways than those already mentioned as Los Angeles (and later San Diego when the team moved there in 1961) beat Oakland the first six times the teams played by scores of 52-28, 41-17, 44-0, 41-10, 42-33 and 31-21.
The Raiders were 6-8, 2-12, and 1-13 in those first three AFL seasons, but in 1963, Oakland’s owners reached onto Coach Sid Gillman’s coaching staff in San Diego and hired assistant Al Davis as a coach and general manager.
Davis turned around the Raiders franchise in dramatic fashion that season with a 10-4 record, winning their last eight games to wind up one game behind the Chargers in the AFL’s Western Division.
The Raiders were on their way to becoming one of the great franchises in sports and beat the Chargers for the first two times that season, 34-33, at Balboa Stadium in San Diego and in an incredible 41-27 comeback victory at Frank Youell Field in Oakland by scoring 31 unanswered points in the fourth quarter.
Both teams have moved around in the ensuing 63 seasons, the Chargers from Los Angeles to San Diego and now back to Los Angeles, while the Raiders went from Oakland to Los Angeles, back to Oakland, and now to Las Vegas.
Perhaps the most famous game and play in the series came on Sept. 10, 1978, when the Raiders had the ball at the Chargers’ 14-yard-line and were trailing, 20-14, with 10 seconds left at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego when Raiders quarterback Kenny “Snake” Stabler” was about to be sacked by Chargers linebacker Woodrow Lowe.
As he was going down, Stabler intentionally lost the ball, hoping to make it look like a fumble. Running back Pete Banaszak knocked the ball toward the goal line and tight end Dave Casper dribbled it a couple of times before recovering it in the end zone for what was ruled a touchdown. And the Raiders won 21-20.
The play will be known forever as “The Holly Roller.”
“The Oakland Raiders have scored on the most zany, unbelievable, absolutely impossible dream of a play,” Raiders legendary radio play-by-play announcer Bill King chortled on the air. “(Coach John) Madden is on the field, he wants to know if it’s real. They said: ‘Yes it is, get your big butt out of here.’ He does. There's nothing real in the world anymore. This one will be relived, forever.”
Said Stabler: “We had no timeouts and if I get sacked the game is over. In that situation, if you lose possession of the ball, hopefully, something good happens. I fumbled the ball on purpose, Banaszak knocked it forward and Casper recovered for what was ruled a touchdown. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
“The best thing was seeing the San Diego Chicken (the Chargers’ mascot) up there in the stands behind the end zone. He was stumbling around and it looked like he was having a heart attack. And then he just collapsed and was lying there lifeless, like he had died.
“We won and a I got about as big a kick out of that as anything else.”
When the teams open the 2022 regular season this Sunday at 1:25 p.m. (PDT) at Sofi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., the rivals will be meeting for the 125th time, not counting pre-season games, with the Silver and Black holding a 67-57-2 lead in the all-time series.
“I throw out the Las Vegas and Los Angeles, it’s Raiders-Chargers week,” said Hank Bauer, former Chargers running back and team captain who will be an analyst for the game in Sports USA Radio. “I’m pumped. … I frickin’ loved (playing against the Raiders). Oh, my God.
“By today’s standard, it would be considered mayhem, the Wild West, but we policed ourselves. If a guy was doing something wrong, we knew how to take care of it.”
The Raiders-Chargers series has gone back and forth through the years.
The Chargers defeated the Raiders 13 consecutive times from 2003-09, but from 1968-77 the Silver and Black put together an incredible 16-0-2 mark against San Diego.
The only time the teams met in the postseason, the Raiders defeated Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Fouts and the favored Chargers, 31-27, in the 1980 AFC Championship Game when Jim Plunkett threw two touchdown passes and ran for another score at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego on their way to winning Super Bowl XV.
Hall of Fame linebacker Ted Hendricks came off the field at one point in that game after the Chargers scored 17 straight points to make it 28-24 and told his offensive teammates: “We can’t stop them, you’ve got to score more points.”
The Raiders got only three more, but fullback Mark van Eegen ran the ball behind the Raiders’ great offensive line to wipe out the last 6:51 on the clock and pull off the upset.
Early last season, quarterback Justin Herbert riddled the Raiders for 222 yards passing and three touchdowns, while running back Austin Ekeler rushed for 141 yards and a touchdown in addition to catching a scoring pass as the Chargers beat the Raiders, 28-14, at Sofi Stadium for the second straight victory over the Silver and Black after losing three in a row.
When the teams played for the first time at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas later in the season, Daniel Carlson kicked field goals of 24, 31, and 52 yards in regulation time before adding two more from 40 and 47 yards in overtime to give the Raiders a 35-32 victory in the last game of the regular season and sent them into the playoffs for the first time since 2016.
Fans of both teams know to hang on to their seats on Sunday because the Raiders vs. Chargers has given them so many memorable moments through the years.
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