AFL mavericks Davis, Adams back on top of NFL

OAKLAND, Calif.

alking through the Raiders' locker room after another victory, Al Davis stopped next to offensive tackle Langston Walker and tight end Doug Jolley -- two fresh-faced rookies who became key members of the venerated owner's latest winning team.

"My second-rounders," Davis said in his distinctive sandpaper rasp. "Everybody wondered what I was doing with you guys. I said, 'Just watch them play."'

For more than four decades, nobody has been able to tell Davis what to do. He has navigated professional football with a style as unique as his satiny, custom-made jogging suits. The Raiders' owner is a stubborn iconoclast, a bold innovator and a tireless litigant -- and those are just a few of the printable descriptions from friends and enemies alike.

Tennessee Titans owner Bud Adams shares Davis' maverick roots in the upstart American Football League. Both men are well-known eccentrics, both made controversial decisions to move their teams, and both prize the value of a dollar.

Both are beloved icons for their franchise's most faithful fans, but both are despised in other quarters -- Adams in Houston, where a Bud piñata was smashed open before a game last month, and Davis in Los Angeles, the offices of Oakland government and throughout the NFL's power structure.

They've got one more thing in common -- a professed disinterest in what anyone else thinks about them.

"I am not about winning friends and influencing people," Davis said earlier this year. "I am what I am. I don't think I'm vindictive. I think I can be tough, if I have to be.

"It's a vicious struggle to be No. 1. It really is. We fight it every day."

But the differences between two of the NFL's longest-tenured owners are sharp as well. While Adams mostly has been a company man during his four decades in football, Davis has become the NFL's biggest detractor from within.

Davis, a former coach, is intimately involved in every part of the Raiders' operation, from the draft room to his usual spot on the sideline at practices. Adams, a wealthy businessman with his Fortune 500 oil company, mostly stays out of the mix -- except for the occasional well-placed verbal jab, such as the one that just might have spurred Tennessee to success this season.

The Titans face the Raiders today in the AFC title game. Davis built the veteran Raiders for one more run at their first championship in 19 years, while Adams still is hoping after 43 years in pro football without a title.

When Adams and Lamar Hunt were unable to get NFL franchises in 1959, they joined with six other optimistic businessmen who put down $100,000 each to form the AFL. Davis joined the party shortly afterward, leaving USC to become an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Chargers.

Three years later, Davis became coach and general manager of the Raiders. He also served as the AFL's commissioner before the merger, when he seized control of the franchise and guided it to three Super Bowl titles.

Adams shepherded his Houston Oilers through the AFL-NFL transition, keeping the team's management largely within his family, while his business interests prospered.

Both have fielded competitive, contending teams in the NFL, and both have endured years of disappointments. Both moved their franchises -- Davis twice -- to make more money, but both alienated their new cities with mercurial business decisions.

The similarities mostly stop there, however. Davis' mutual antipathy with the NFL is the most visible aspect of his organization, despite its stability and more-or-less consistent success for four decades. His $1.2 billion conspiracy lawsuit against the league is still pending.

Davis hasn't lost his maverick vision on the field, either. This fall, he built a veteran team against the conventional wisdom of salary-cap management, even if it leaves him $50 million over the cap for next season, as some believe it will.

"Al Davis has never been one to go young," said receiver Tim Brown. "Fifty million over the cap is no problem. It's a matter of redoing 10 contracts."

The proof of Davis' acumen is obvious: The Raiders are one game from the Super Bowl despite losing their coach last season. Davis even turned that potential catastrophe into a windfall when Jon Gruden, chafing under the limitations of a coach's role on Davis' team, decided to jump to Tampa Bay.

Davis got four high draft picks and a wad of cash from the Buccaneers as compensation, then kept every significant assistant, including new coach Bill Callahan. Late last year, the NFL put a moratorium on the exchange of anything but players until March 31 -- but Davis had already earned the last laugh.

The Raiders have savagely criticized many government agencies in Northern California since returning -- and here, Adams can relate.

He has feuded with Nashville's new mayor over interest owed the Titans, and team officials angered local authorities by installing security planters around their stadium without consulting first, even though Nashville pays the tab. They're still arguing over the contract that keeps Nashville from earning enough money to pay for maintenance at the stadium.

Adams remains one of the most hated men in Houston for relocating the Oilers to Tennessee in 1997 after threatening to leave for years. When he returned for the first meeting between the old and new Houston franchises, a record crowd showed up to boo while fans batted piñatas with Adams' likeness.

"I did see a few Oilers jerseys in the stands, but two of them, the police were taking out," Adams joked. "Maybe it was to protect them."

Adams usually doesn't do much more than sign his team's checks, but when the Titans started this season 1-4, he left their 31-14 loss to Washington early. He said he thought Tennessee was being "outcoached."

The Titans responded by winning 11 of their next 12 to reach the AFC championship for the fourth time in franchise history.

"Me, as a player, I just kind of looked at it and kind of like chuckled," linebacker Keith Bulluck said. "I didn't know what to make of it."