The Oakland Raiders played the Denver Broncos for the initial time in the fourth game of the 1960 season, 64 years ago, when both teams were charter members of the brand-new American Football League.
The Broncos won that game, 31-14, at Bears Stadium in Denver, but the Raiders reversed that outcome with a 48-10 rout of Denver in the final game of the season at Candlestick Park in San Francisco to finish their inaugural season at 6-8.
Denver won four of the team’s first six games, but the Raiders have turned things around in a big way in the ensuing seasons and led the all-time series, 72-54-2, having won the last seven games in a row. A 17-16 victory over the Broncos this season on Empower Field at Mile High in Denver in the opener was included.
Related content There have been some memorable games in the series, many of them when the Raiders faced future Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway, who longtime members of Raider Nation believe should have been wearing Silver and Black instead of orange and blue.
Elway, an All-American at Stanford, was set to be the No. 1 pick of the 1983 NFL Draft but said he wouldn’t play for the Baltimore Colts, who had that selection, and would instead sign a baseball contract with the New York Yankees.
So, Raiders owner Al Davis put together a deal with the Colts to acquire that No. 1 draft choice and select Elway for three No. 1 draft picks and two No. 2 selections, but NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle blocked the deal.
Rozelle and Davis had been rivals since the Raiders’ owner was commissioner of the AFL and helped force the NFL-AFL merger, which became complete in 1970.
“We almost had Elway, but Pete Rozelle voided the trade,” former Raiders personnel executive Ron Wolf, a Pro Football Hall of Fame member member, said. “We had the trade set up with Baltimore, but Pete wouldn’t let it happen.”
Said an angry Davis: “We believe there are enough facts in the Elway-Raiders-Baltimore Colts-Chicago Bears file to warrant filing an action which would negate the [Elway-Denver] deal.
” Added Elway’s agent Marvin Demoff, who also believed Rozelle and the NFL interfered: “There was a deal and then suddenly there wasn’t interfered. Something happened.
Someone showed an unusual interest in the deal and it wasn’t [the Raiders] or Baltimore… . Let’s just say I’d have some interesting testimony.
” However, no action was ever filed. Instead, the Colts made a deal to send the No. 1 pick [Elway] to the Broncos for backup quarterback Mark Hermann, tackle Chris Hinton, and a first-round draft pick, which Rozelle approved.
The Colts wound up with linebacker Vernon Maxwell of Arizona State with the first pick of the second round. Elway had only a 13-15 record against the Raiders in his 16-year career, including losses in four of the first five games, mainly because Denver had inferior overall talent for many of those seasons.
When the Broncos acquired some real talent, including running back Terrell Davis, the Broncos won four of the last five games Elway played against the Silver and Black at the end of his career, when he led Denver to back-to-back victories in Super Bowls XXXII and XXXIII.
Raider Nation can only wonder how many Super Bowls the Raiders might have won with Elway at quarterback for the Silver and Black all those years. The Silver and Black finish the 2023 NFL Regular season this weekend at home by hosting their AFC West rival, the Denver Broncos.
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