Michaels blasts Al Davis in interview
The Oakland Raiders will not win another Super Bowl as long as owner Al Davis is alive and in charge of the franchise, NBC Sunday Night Football play-by-play man Al Michaels told a TMZ.com photographer.
Michaels was stopped Monday evening outside Boa Restaurant in Hollywood and asked on camera, “Are we (the Raiders) ever going to win a Super Bowl while Al Davis is still alive?”
“No,” Michaels responded without hesitation.
“Never?” asked the photographer, a self-professed “huge” Raiders fan.
“How much longer do you think Al Davis is going to live?” Michaels asked, turning the questioning back to the cameraman.
“He’ll outlive all of us!” the TMZ photog exclaimed.
“Well, he may do that,” Michaels said with a laugh, “but you ain’t gonna win a Super Bowl.”
The Raiders won world championships in Super Bowls XI, XV and XVIII but have not posted a winning record since 2002, when the team went 11-5 in the regular season and was trounced 48-21 by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl XXXVII.
Michaels also was asked whether he considered Davis — one of the AFL and NFL’s pioneers and a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame — to be a genius.
“Let me ask you a question: If you had a team that lost 11 or more games seven consecutive years, would you say a genius ran the team?” Michaels answered.