Before the 1983 draft, former Raider owner Al Davis was convinced he was going to get Stanford star quarterback John Elway. He knew the price would be steep; he knew he needed to make several moves to get the first overall pick (I write in detail about this in my new book Football Done Right). He also knew he had an ace up his sleeve. Baltimore’s owner Robert Irsay wanted cash—and Davis had cash, lots of cash from a huge preseason gate. Davis believed with Elway on his team, the Raiders would dominate the NFL for the next 15 years. As he famously would say to me when watching a great player making a difference, “Just put player on my team.”
Davis also understood the need for more than one great player and that championship-caliber teams had to come together. He hated anyone in his organization to talk glowingly about his team or offering stupid predictions. He never wanted the pressure of someone running their mouth to be placed on the players, which is why the Raiders never had introductory press conferences for any draft picks. When Jets head coach Robert Saleh spoke before the team’s first OTA day, having acquired Aaron Rodgers, I thought back to Davis and how he would have reacted to Saleh’s words—spoiler alert—not well.
Saleh went into full television commentator mode (watch out Danny O) with this statement. “So acknowledge the noise, acknowledge the positivity, be excited about it because there's… in my opinion, 32 coaches stand in front of their teams every year, talk about winning a championship, and then realistically, there’s maybe six or eight teams that have an actual chance to do it, and I do think we are one of those teams,” Saleh said, via Nick Shook of NFL.com. When did Saleh become a handicapper? How can the Jets be one of the 6-8 when Saleh has only won eleven games over the last two seasons as their head coach?
Why is Saleh talking Super Bowl when winning the AFC East might be his hardest challenge? The Bills, the Dolphins and Patriots all had to laugh at this comment, especially considering Saleh is 2-10 against the East, never beating the Patriots and winning one game in two seasons against the Bills and Dolphins.