Allen "Al" Davis was born on the 4^th of July in 1929 in Brockton, Massachusetts. At the present time, he serves as the principal owner of the NFL's Oakland Raiders. His current title is, "president of the general partner" or "managing general partner", depending on who you talk to and what kind of mood Al is in at the time.

Davis' got his start in professional football as the offensive end coach for the Los Angeles Chargers for three seasons from 1960 to 1962. The next season, at the age of 33, Davis became the head coach and general manager of the AFL's Oakland Raiders.

Even back then, as he is now, Davis was known for his black slicked-back hair, Brooklyn accent, dark glasses and his bloodthirsty competitiveness.

Before Davis took over in Oakland, the Raiders had compiled a 9–33 record in their first three years of existence. In his first year in 1963, Davis led the team to a 10–4 record and was unanimously named the AFL Coach of the Year.

In three seasons as the head coach in Oakland, Davis compiled a coaching record of 23–16–3.

In 1966, he was named the American Football League Commissioner. From day one in office, he promptly began an aggressive campaign against the NFL and in the process, he coerced several of the NFL's best players to make the switch over to the AFL and signed them to contracts.

Other AFL owners, and oblivious to Davis, were holding secret meetings with NFL executives, and shortly thereafter the AFL  announced that they were merging with the NFL.

Davis was against the merger from the get go because he believed that the compensation the AFL teams were required to pay the NFL was unwarranted, and because he believed that the AFL, if given more time,  would become be the superior football league if they remained separate from the NFL.

On July 25, 1966; Davis resigned as the commissioner of the AFL because he did not want to remain as commissioner for four years when the merger would officially take place.

Davis then returned to his old club when he purchased a 10 percent stake in the Raiders. He served as one of three general partners of the team and was also named Head of Football operations.

Once Davis had his foot in the door, he ruthlessly attempted to gain power within the organization. In 1972, while the managing general partner was in Munich attending the 1972 Summer Olympics, Davis drafted a revised partnership agreement that would make him the new managing general partner, with near-absolute control over team operations.

Since two of the team's three general partners had voted in favor of the agreement, it was binding under partnership law of the time.

The former managing general partner sued in an attempt to overturn the agreement once he returned to the country, but his efforts went for naught. He sold his interest in the club in 1976, and no one other then Davis has had any role in running the Raiders since.

This was besides the fact that Davis did not own a majority interest in the Raiders until almost thirty years later in 2005, when he finally bought the shares which were held by the former agreeing general partners family. Davis now owns around 67 percent of the interests of the Raiders through his company, A.D. Football, Inc.

As well as serving as owner of the Raiders, Davis serves as his own general manager. He has run the Raiders' football operations since 1966, which is longer than any other football operations chief in the NFL. He is one of three NFL owners who also have the title or powers of the general manager, with the others being Jerry Jones of the Cowboys and Mike Brown of the Bengals.

Once Davis took over control, the Raiders became one of the most successful teams in not only the NFL, but also all of professional sports. From 1967 to 1985, the team won 13 division championships, one AFL championship, three Super Bowls, and made 15 playoff appearances.

The Raiders are one of only two teams in the NFL to play in the Super Bowl in 4 different decades. The other team is the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Raiders have played in the Conference/League Championship Game in every single decade since their inception.

Since 2003 however, the team's fortunes have not shared the earlier success of the Raiders, going 24–72 from 2003 to 2008.

Some of Davis’ tactics as well as the way he scouts and drafts players just does not work the same way that it used to. Times have changed, but Davis refused to alter his philosophies with the changing times in professional football. 

He has a very short fuse and he is not in the habit of being patient with his coaches.   

Twenty years ago, Davis was talking with Bill Parcells during an NFL owners meeting when Davis' new coach happened to walk by.

“I want you to meet Mike Shanahan,” Davis told Parcells. “He's going to be a great head coach.”

Shanahan, who was only 35 at the time, has gone on to honor that statement. However, he did not do it with Davis’ Raiders. Davis fired him after only twenty games as the Raiders head coach. Ironically, former Raiders head coach Lane Kiffin was also fired by Davis after only twenty games as the head coach.

Since 1989, when he fired Shanahan, Davis has gone through nine other head coaches. That is about an average of a new coach every other season. Even though the Raiders were winning with Jon Gruden, Davis disagreed with his coaching philosophies and “traded” Gruden to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

They following season, Gruden got his revenge with the Bucs defeating the Raiders in the Super Bowl.

Most recently, people are wondering if Davis takes the whole scouting, working out and drafting process as seriously as he should.  Even in this years NFL draft, despite truckloads of data demonstrating that Michael Crabtree was the best receiver in the draft, Davis decided to select wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey with the #7 overall pick.

As the pick was announced, everyone from the draft experts such as Mel Kiper, Todd McShay and Mike Mayock’s jaws dropped to the floor in disbelief. Heyward-Bey was considered a risky prospect. Sure he has great speed, but his hands are much to be desired.  The experts saw Heyward-Bey going towards the end of the first round, to a good team who did not have a boatload of pressing needs. To a team who could take a chance on his speed and have a year or two to develop his pass catching abilities.

The Raiders however, have an abundance of pressing needs, and most experts felt that Michael Crabtree who is a much more polished receiver would be the choice as he could possibly help out from the get go.

But no, Davis, stuck to his guns and threw conventional wisdom out the window and went and spent his cherished #7draft pick on Heyward-Bey.  I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that meeting.

Davis’s fixation on speedy players continues to be one of the more popular jokes in sports. The only people who are not laughing are the Raiders fans, who have had to endure their once-proud team fall into the armpits of the Comedy Channel on cable TV.  

But wait, it’s not over yet. In the second round, Dictator Al really eclipsed himself by selecting safety Michael Mitchell, who was projected by most draft experts as 6^th or 7^th round draft pick

After that pick, I am sure that there were extremely large quantities of alcohol and drugs consumed by Raider fans. The draft gurus at that point did not even say much or even belittle Davis for such a ridiculous pick. They looked at each other in amazement, rolled their eyes, and simply made the “cuckoo” sign with their finger to their heads.

Raider players picked up their phones and immediately dialed their agents and started scheming for ways they could get themselves transported out of town. Politicians in Oakland held a special meeting to decide if they should pack their bags and get the heck out of Dodge and move to L.A., since there are no laws to make Davis move back there.

Even Mike Ditka, who as head coach/general manager of the New Orleans Saints, made one of the biggest blunders in draft history when he traded every single draft pick in order to draft running back Rickey Williams, has the opinion that Davis is clueless when it comes to the draft.

If you talk to any former Raiders from the past 5-8 years, you hear a familiar answer. "I'm just glad to be out of here."

Al Davis has done a lot for the sport of professional football and at one time, he was one of the most successful NFL executives in the business. However, times have changed, and Al needs to change with the times or call it a career and retire from football.