Do you think Hall of Famer Marcus Allen was a great NFL running back? Me too. But imagine if, instead of retiring in 1997, he still played today for the Raiders. How would Raider Nation respond if on every dive play, every sweep, every trap, every off-tackle hand off, a slow-footed, 48-year-old Marcus Allen were brutally stuffed an instant after taking the ball for a three-yard loss?

They would probably react the way intelligent Raider fans (an oxymoron?) cringe at Al Davis attempting coach his team from the owner's box. In the 1960s, Al Davis won "coach of the year" in the AFL. Owner Davis's Raiders won three Super Bowls. They were once the winningest franchise in the NFL. Now they are a joke. They've had great players in recent years--Randy Moss, Jerry Rice, Rich Gannon. They've had great coaches--John Gruden, Mike Shanahan. But, aside from a few seasons earlier in the decade, they have been the laughing stock of the league. It's not the players. It's not the coaches. It's certainly not the collective will of the face-painted, post-apocalyptic costumed Raider fans. It's the owner--that Howard Hughes-weird, sweat-suited, cartoonish owner.

When the game passes a player by, it's usually pretty obvious. It's harder to pinpoint when it passes an owner by. Somewhere between Lyle Alzado and Barret Robbins, Al Davis lost his grip on reality--and on football. Since losing the Super Bowl in 2003, the Raiders are 20-65.

Davis has wasted first-round picks on a kicker and media-creation quarterback. Last year, he drafted a college quarterback lacking NFL accuracy with the first pick. He calls in blitz packages from the owner's box. Just like his bush-league firing of Mike Shanahan, a stubborn and stingy Davis refuses to pay recently fired coach Lane Kiffin--whom he calls a "flat-out liar" and a "disgrace"--the remaining money owed to him on his contract. Unlike every other NFL team, the Raiders have a stable of Davis loyalists in permanent roles on the coaching staff. In other words, hired head coaches are limited in who they can bring in as assistants. What talented coach, scout, or even player, would want to work in that environment?

"Some strange play would appear during a game," former tight end Jamie Williams told Sports Illustrated in 1996, "and players would look up to the press box and say, 'That was Al.'" Retired defensive tackle Warren Sapp last week seconded Williams's memory: "I remember the first two weeks I was there, we played a preseason game. Somebody came up one time and said, 'We're going deep right here, dog.' I said, how do you know? He said, 'The phone just rang.'"

The same '96 SI piece relates the Davis's practice of dropping a towel in front of an employee with the expectation that the employee would clean his shoes. "I saw him make someone wipe his shoes in front of 75 people," Denver Broncos coach Mike Shanahan told SI. I heard Chris Landry, NFL scout and Fox Sports NFL radio guru, tell a weird story of Davis phoning coaches in the middle of the night to pick him up a sandwich. The guy is a case study of what happens to an egomaniac when he surrounds himself by sycophants.

Al Davis's motto is "Just win, baby." The New Orleans Saints blew out the hapless Raiders 34-3 on Sunday. Just another day in Raider Nation.

One can't help but wonder what kind of effect Al Davis had on QB Russell by putting out that stupid letter to former coach when he fired him noting how the former coach didn't think much of Jarmarcus.