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Surprising facts about the Oakland Raiders

As you know, we’ve been running a ‘runoff vote’ to determine which former Oakland Raider to rally around for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Since Kenny Stabler’s DUI, Ray Guy has taken a commanding lead in the vote by 35 votes after nearly 1500 votes had been recorded. Calling a 2.3% difference ‘commanding’ seems like an overstatement, but at the time of this writing, it’s the largest lead that either former teammate has had in the poll. Keep your votes coming, if you haven’t voted already.

Since we are going to attempt to lead the charge for either of these guys, I wanted to start getting my facts straight. While checking through the Oakland Raiders career stats, I found some interesting information that I thought I’d share. My source of this information is Pro Football - reference.com so if you’re bored or a stat-hound like myself, take a look. I’m sure everyone could name the all-time Raiders runningback, but what about the guy who holds second place?

Seabass, the greatest Raiders kicker?

What would you say if I told you that Sebastian Janikowski is the greatest placekicker the Raiders have ever had? Would you believe me? I surely wouldn’t have believed it, but then it was there for all to see. Let’s run it down. What makes a great kicker?

How about scoring? Ok, so that is where Janikowski doesn’t outdo the rest. He’s third with 808 total points trailing George Blanda’s 863 and Chris Barr’s 817. It’s common for a placekicker to score 100 points in a season, so look for Seabass to be numero uno in the points department by the end of the 2008 season.

Scoring can be inflated as a judgment for being a great kicker, so how about field goal percentage (FG%)? This is a stat that proves accuracy. For our purposes, kickers have to have tried at least 50 field goals to even be included in this discussion. It really doesn’t matter though because the only field goal kicker to have a better FG% than Jano is his cellulitis replacement Brett Conway, who went 1-for-1 in 2000. It seems like he’s always missing field goals, but Seabass leads all Raiders kickers with a 76.8 FG%. Second to Janikowski is Jeff Jaeger with 74.5%. Here’s a list:

• Kicker——FGA—–FG%

1. Janikowski—233——76.8%
2. Jaeger——-204——74.5%
3. Cole Ford—–62——72.6%
4. Chris Bahr—249——65.1%
5. Blanda——-249——62.7%

So maybe that’s not enough to sway you about Janikowski. Points after touchdown would be another way to judge. The total doesn’t matter, but the percentage does. The Raiders have never had a kicker who tried at least 50 of these be perfect. Of the kickers who have attempted at least 50 in a Raiders uniform, Janikowski again is number one with a 99.3% rate. Here’s the top 5:

• Kicker——XPA——XP%

1. Janikowski—273——-99.3%
2. Mike Mercer-119——-99.2%
3. Blanda——-403——-98.0%
4. Jaeger——-216——-97.7%
5. Ford———89——–96.6%

Speaking of kicking, you all probably know that Shane Lechler is the All-Time Raiders yards per punt average king and that Ray Guy is the standard by which all punters are judged, but did you know that Leo Araguz is second in yards per punt average for a Raider? Yards punted by a Raiders punter starts at Ray Guy with 44,493 yards punted followed by Shane Lechler with 27,511 and Jeff Gossett with 26,747.

Ray Guy could play quarterback, but no Raiders quarterback was better at racking up yards than Ken Stabler with 19,078 yards passing. Do you know who number two is? Lamonica? Plunkett? Nope, it’s Rich Gannon with 17,585 yards passing. Out of all Raiders quarterbacks who’ve attempted at least 5 passes, Rich Gannon also holds highest career passing completion percentage at 62.6%.

Most passing TD’s goes to Stabler with 150, followed by Lamonica with 148, and far behind in third is Gannon with 114. Interestingly enough, Tom Flores with 92, threw more touchdown passes than Jim Plunkett (80) for fourth and fifth respectively.

QB Rating is a stat used to judge how good a quarterback really is. Is it really any surprise that Gannon is the best at this stat with a 91.2 rating? What surprised me was that Jeff George is number two with a 86.6, Wade Wilson has a 85.8 rating with only 88 attempts, then Hostetler (82.1) and Stabler (80.2) round out the top 5.

Back to my original question, who is the second all-time raider runningback? One of my favorite Raiders of all time, Mark Van Eeghen with 5907 yards. Allen leads with 8545, and with the backfield that the Raiders have assembled this year, Raider Nation has to hope that one of the guys back there will be just as great.

There are two stats for runningbacks that I think are more important than actual yards: yards per game(YPG) and yards per carry(YPC). Proof of the validity of these stats are a comparison between Barry Sanders and Emmit Smith. Smith holds the all-time record for yards gained, but is anyone going to deny that Barry Sanders was better?

The all-time Raiders YPG leader is Bo Jackson with 73.2, followed by Allen with 58.9. Are you starting to see my point? Clem Daniels is number three with 58.7 and then it gets a little weird. Lamont Jordan with 57.4 YPG is fourth all-time with Kaufman and Van Eeghen tied with 52.7. In order to qualify for this ranking, the player has to have at least averaged half a game per game scheduled.

The all-time Raiders YPC leader is based on at least 100 attempts as a Raider. The top guy is Bo with a 5.4 YPC over 515 attempts. Rich Gannon is second with 4.9 and 249 attempts, but let’s not count non-runners in this discussion. Kauffman has 4.9 YPC, Marv Hubbard has 4.8 YPC, and Charlie Garner is fourth with 4.6 YPC. Larry Todd, Clem Daniels, and Clarence Davis are all tied with 4.5 YPC.

Brown, Biletnikoff, and Branch are the top Raiders receivers of all time in receptions and yards. No surprise there except there is an eerie coincidence that all of their names start with a ‘B’. Todd Christensen and Marcus Allen round out the top five for receptions as a Raider. Christensen and Allen were not wide receivers, so it’s even more interesting to note that Jerry Porter’s 284 receptions are sixth all-time! Yes, that would mean that he’s the fourth best Raider receiver in receptions, all-time.

The three B’s are still the best in receiving yards, followed by Christensen at number four. Who knew that Art Powell was fifth and James Jett was sixth in receiving yards? I didn’t. I was actually surprised that James “Scholarship” Jett caught enough balls to gain 4417 yards. By the way, Jerry Porter is eighth on this list.

If Jerry Porter being the fourth best Raider receiver all-time surprised you, guess who has the most kick return touchdowns as a Raider? Don’t lie, I know you didn’t guess Terry Kirby. That’s right, the former Dolphin runningback-turned Raider has the most kick returns for touchdowns with 2.

Nobody should be surprised that Tim Brown is tied with three others for most punt return touchdowns with 3, but can you name the other three? George Atkinson, Claude Gibson, and surprisingly enough Phillip “giveth and taketh” Buchanon. If that bonehead could’ve just gotten serious about his job, he may have been a great player.

So have I put you to sleep with all of these little statistical tidbits? If not, then you might want to stay up for the next few facts about the Raiders defensive players. Before I begin, let me just point out that the stat for ‘tackles’ have only been official since 2001. Before 1994, the stat was inconsistently recorded from team to team and from 1994 to 2001, they were unofficial, but consistently recorded. Sacks have been compiled since 1982.

In one less year, but seven more games, Greg Townsend has 23.5 more sacks than hall of fame great Howie Long(84). Townsend is also the Raiders all-time sackmaster because of this with 107.5 sacks. Third on the list is Anthony Smith with 57.5, followed by Bill Pickel with 53 and Chester McGlockton with 39.5. It looks like the Raiders will be dropping McGlockton from its top five after Burgess(35) passes him.

Lester Hayes and Willie Brown share the top spot with most interceptions by a Raider with 39 each. Terry McDaniel had 34, and Vann McElroy had 31 to rank third and fourth. The best Raiders safety tandem of all time are tied for fifth with 30 picks a piece, Jack Tatum and George Atkinson. I’d like to add that McElroy’s interceptions came in the fewest number of games played with 98 for a remarkable rate of almost one interception every three games. Tatum and Atkinson played 120 and 124 respectively.

Just to give you an idea of how easy it will be for the law firm of Morrison and Howard to become the top tacklers of all-time for the Raiders, I leave you with this:

• Player————-Tackles

1. Eddie Anderson——761
2. Greg Biekert———704
3. Terry McDaniel——467
4. Bill Pickel————454
5. Lionel Washington—403

• Morrison————289
• Howard————-165

To all of the guys out there that play a role in their child’s or step-child’s lives, happy Father’s Day. You guys should be commended for being there. I’d also like to thank my Dad for always making sure that I had a roof over my head, food to eat, and a role-model to follow.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, June 15th, 2008 at 2:18 am and is filed under 2008, Sebastian Janikowski, Thomas Howard, Kirk Morrison, Raiders History, Oakland Raiders Current Player Analysis, Oakland Raiders Analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.