The Raiders have enjoyed no shortage of legendary head coaches in the franchise's 65-year history. Coaches worthy of this distinction range from the great Al Davis himself to NFL royalty like John Madden and Tom Flores, and even more recent coaching stars like Art Shell and Jon Gruden.
These leaders have helped the Silver and Black win all three of their Super Bowl trophies and have had a hand in countless Hall of Fame playing careers. They all contributed to the mystique of the Raiders in their own unique way and should each be enshrined in Canton, Ohio, in the coming years.
One man, however, intersected a handful of these historic coaching tenures and was unable to uphold the ethics and success of the Shield. After Madden and Flores retired, and before Shell took over for the first time, Mike Shanahan was the head coach of the Los Angeles Raiders, and things went sideways in a hurry.
Raiders are responsible for Mike Shanahan's Super Bowl runs with Broncos
Before the 1988 NFL season, Al Davis hired Shanahan, a first-time head coach, to lead the Raiders. He succeeded the legendary Flores, who had won two Super Bowls but retired when the team started to falter. Shanahan, a supposed brilliant offensive mind, was thought to be the answer in Los Angeles.
He came to the Silver and Black from their bitter rival Denver Broncos, where he was the offensive coordinator for several seasons. In fact, Shanahan was the first coach hired from outside the Raiders' organization since Davis himself back in 1963.
His first season with the team was a bit up and down, as they went 6-2 in the AFC West, but went 1-7 against the rest of the league. Coincidentally, that lone win was against the eventual Super Bowl-champion 49ers. The Raiders lost four of their final five games of the season, giving them a 7-9 record in 1988.
Given Davis' inclination to winning, this below .500 record was certainly not going to cut it. However, the team's struggles on the field were merely the tip of the iceberg when it came to Shanahan's problems. He was wildly unpopular with the players on the Raiders, and he and Davis clashed repeatedly when it came to matters of running the team.
Shanahan's coaching staff in Los Angeles was a mixture of several holdovers from the Flores regime and people whom he brought with him from previous coaching stops. This split the staff in two, which made things contentious for the Raiders at times.
This tension culminated in a heated argument between Art Shell, a Davis hire, and Nick Nicolau, a Shanahan addition. Nicolau allegedly told Shell that he was only a Raiders coach because of his relationship with Davis, and when Davis caught wind of this, he fired Nicolau immediately.
In response, Shanahan fired Tom Walsh and Joe Scannella, both of whom were hires that Davis made. At the end of the season, Shanahan also fired the legendary Willie Brown and Charlie Sumner, who were part of Flores' staff as well. Davis then hired Brown back to a different spot in the organization.
RELATED: Raiders reportedly wanted young head coach this offseason (but not Ben Johnson)
Somehow, Shanahan remained the coach for the 1989 season, but he was fired after a 1-3 start. In his 27 years as a play caller or head coach, two of his worst four offensive seasons were with the Raiders.
By firing Shanahan, Davis felt like he got the last laugh. Shell became the interim coach and went 7-5 to finish the season, then made the playoffs in three of the next four years. Shanahan, by contrast, did not get another head coaching gig for several years.
Until the Broncos hired him in 1995 to succeed Wade Phillips as the franchise's head coach. He then won back-to-back Super Bowls during the 1997 and 1998 NFL seasons and compiled a record of 138-86, which is a win percentage of 61.6%, over his 14 years at the helm in Denver.
During that same stretch, the Raiders were 92-132, a winning percentage of 41.1%, and made the playoffs on just three occasions. They also won just seven of their 28 games against the Broncos, and only one of their first 12 after Shanahan took over.
Shanahan's coaching tree is also extensive, with men like Sean McVay, Gary Kubiak, Matt LeFleur, Raheem Morris, Mike McDaniel and his son, Kyle Shanahan. When talking about Mike Shanahan's legacy in the NFL, his short and tumultuous tenure with the Raiders is often overlooked.
His firing did catapult the coaching career of Art Shell, and he was instrumental in the Raiders drafting Hall of Famer Tim Brown, as well as solid players like Terry McDaniel and Scott Davis.
Perhaps it was this early-career setback that formed Shanahan into the coach that he became. Regardless, it is easy to understand why many feel that the Raiders blew it by firing Shanahan. After all, it did turn their division rivals into multi-time Super Bowl champions.
