I can tell you with full confidence we don’t shit the bed against Buffalo and get embarrassed 51-3 in the AFC Championship
Jay Schroeder.
We had Jay Schroeder at QB. Our backup RB, pressed into service, was Marcus Allen.
Maybe we only lose 51-17?
I can’t stress how awful a QB Schroeder was. He was so very bad. Al loved him because he could throw it out of the end zone from his own goal line, and every so often Willie Gault would run under one and it would be great, but he was dogshit. We weren’t going anywhere with him.
The next few drafts were terrible at QB. We got Billy Joe Hobert, who had talent and won a natty at Washington, but made JaMarcus look like a student of the game.
Now Bo in the Hostetler years? Maybe we get back to the AFC championship.
1993, do we win the close Buffalo game in zero degree weather with Bo? Maybe we do. Are we allowed to beat the Joe Montan led Chiefs in the AFC championship? Maybe we are. But no way in hell we beat the Cowboys.
1994, the wheels were starting to come off, but RB was a hole. Remember, we got Bo for half the season and the playoffs. We had two one score losses. Either is a W and we make the playoffs at 10-6. Same story though- do we beat the 49ers? I’d have liked to have seen that game.
What if winning in the playoffs got us full-time Bo? Now there’s a thought. . .
We’re an unlucky franchise smh. In the early 2000s we should’ve had 1 superbowl and in the 90s had bo stayed healthy we’d have gone to the superbowl and won 1. Even the best season of the past 20 years was derailed by an injury to carr smh
I was at his last game and I said to my buddy …oh shit,that looked bad, after him got tackled.The Raiders never recovered from that.They have been cursed since then.The way it eneded reaching the Superbowl was only more torture.
So the thing you have to remember about Bo Jackson through the eyes of those of us old enough to remember his career is there was no internet, no 24/7 sports cycle, less national TV access to games, etc. To us, Bo was a literal myth, a human highlight reel who did freakish things on the field. You are not likely to get an objective opinion on Bo from people that were there, it’s like asking a hardcore Christian what Jesus was like. I’m not surprised some people here think the Raiders would have won multiple SB’s if he’d stayed healthy.
The truth is more complicated - Bo liked football, but he LOVED baseball. He originally turned down NFL football altogether for baseball, the Tampa Bay Bucs offered him $7 million and he chose instead to sign with the Royals for $1 million.
His body was not going to survive many more seasons playing 162 MLB games then 8-10 NFL games then NFL playoffs. If he hadn’t hurt his hip, he’d probably have done another 1-2 seasons with the Raiders max then signed a long term baseball contract.
Other things to note - the Raiders were a poorly coached and GM’ed team at the time. They had what could have been the greatest 2 headed monster RB tandem ever but Al Davis had a personal vendetta with Marcus Allen and Bo was his way of getting back at Marcus
If Al didn’t have an issue with Marcus. Bo would be a fresh set of legs for playoff runs. Bo was just the fastest player on the field (4.2?) combined with his freakish power and size. It was a highlight reel every game he played.
Minimally - at that time dallas or sf were clearly the best outfits and the bills the elite in the afc. A RB cannot make up for an inferior defense and QB and receiving group.
He was a physical outlier that played football as his second sport, managed to average 73 yards a game, thats 1171 yard season, that doesn’t trump Shroeder vs Jim Kelly, Steve Young, Aikman.