This offseason Raiders new head coach Klint Kubiak surprised everyone when he had the players on the team take the field for practices with no Raiders shield on their helmets. That is something that hadn’t happened in a very long time and certainly was the first time since they came to Las Vegas.
At the time, it sounded like it may not be until training camp that we would see the shield on the helmet. But Tuesday, when the Raiders took the field for their first minicamp practice, they came out with the shield on the helmet.
Advertisement
Now, honestly, that could simply be because they had just come off of media day in which they take pictures in full uniform. And rather than take the shields off their helmets, they opted to just leave them on.
But the interesting part of this is that the idea of earning the shield was more than about their work on the field, but learning the history of the organization.
“They’ve bought in and have been working their tail off so they definitely earned that [shield],” said Kubiak. “But that’s an everyday thing. For us to earn the respect of the organization and the Raiders that have come before us as players and coaches, that’s something that we take really seriously. We spent a lot of time this offseason talking about the history of this team and getting our players familiar with who these faces are around the building. Who are the great Raiders by position. It was something that was really important to me was that we educate the team on the history of this place.”
This would explain why Fernando Mendoza has been able to rattle off all the list of great Raiders quarterbacks when discussing the history of the team. Though, to be fair, he was already familiar with the likes of Tom Flores and Jim Plunkett as a couple of a select few Hispanic quarterbacks in league history.
Advertisement
But it would go far beyond that. It means the four drafted defensive backs would learn about the greatness of guys like Jack Tatum, Willie Brown, and Lester Hayes, Keyron Crawford would get a history lesson on the edge prowess of Howie Long and Greg Townsend, Trey Kuhn would learn about road grading career Raiders like Steve Wisniewski and Gene Upshaw, and Malik Benson would know the organizational significance of Cliff Branch and ‘Mr Raider’ Tim Brown.
The history lesson would mostly apply to those new to the team – which would be the majority of the team – but certainly not exclusively the newcomers.
Al Davis used to say “The Greatness of the Raiders is in its future”, but it’s also in its past. It’s the reason the Raiders keep strong ties with their alumni and you will see them around a lot. They have a rich history and it’s worth instilling that sense of pride in those who put on the shield.
This article originally appeared on Raiders Wire: How Raiders players ‘earned the shield’ included one unexpected detail
