“Seeds of Chucky” (2003)
January 26, 2003; Oakland Raiders vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Oakland Raiders would return to contention from 2000-2002 with Coach Jon “Chucky” Gruden and the shoulders of aging players like Jerry Rice, Tim Brown, and Rich Gannon.
Al Davis would also buck the orthodoxy of the NFL Draft by selecting Kicker Sebastian Janikowski in the first-round of the 2000 NFL Draft, because a kicker was seen as their biggest hole for a team that had a small-window to succeed.
In 2000, Rich Gannon would lead the Raiders to the AFC Championship game during the 2000-2001 postseason against the Baltimore Ravens, where DL Tony Siragusa would intentionally injure Gannon to sideline him (the NFL fined Siragusa for the hit).
The Ravens would eventually win the game, and then defeat the New York Giants in the Super Bowl.
In 2001, Jerry Rice and Tim Brown became the oldest receiver tandem to record more than 1,000 yards in the same season, and Jerry Rice would explode in the 2001 postseason against the Jets, and …
July 14th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
The Oakland Raiders should never have traded Jon Gruden.