I spoke with Lincoln Kennedy a couple days ago, for a story I’m writing that will explore the yawning gap between the 2002 Raiders and more current incarnations of the team. That story will run Super Bowl Sunday in the Press Democrat.
Kennedy is not just the most recent Raiders offensive lineman to play in the Pro Bowl – he and center Barret Robbins both were voted into the game in 2002. He is a bright, engaging sports fan who always says something worth hearing. It had been too long since I spoke to him.
Over the course of our conversation, Kennedy dropped an opinion that startled me. Virtually unprompted, he said the biggest detriment to the Raiders since he left after the 2003 season was the signing of DT Warren Sapp in 2004.
“And here’s the reason,” Kennedy explained. “Every interview I heard Warren do, he never accepted the silver and black like other castaway veterans. He always played that Buccaneer card. And I was pissed off at that as a veteran player. If they wanted you, they would have kept your ass, you know what I’m saying? If someone else gave you another chance to finish your career strong, accept that.
“He immediate became a figurehead on the team, an icon. And all I ever heard him talk about was his days at Tampa. Go back in the archives and look at any other player who had an impact on the Raiders, and you don’t hear that, especially among the castaways.”
Fascinating. I had a few touchy moments with Sapp early on, and a lot of great ones over his final three years with the Raiders. I never thought of him in the way Kennedy described.
Lincoln also had an interesting take on passing the torch to younger players on his way out of Oakland.
“I remember the year I retired, I told the Raiders I couldn’t do it anymore,” he said. “I sat across the table from Mr. Davis and said, ‘Look, you got a player named Langston Walker. He’s making seven figures. I couldn’t say, ‘Let him play my spot, I’ll sit back and watch.’ The competitor in me wouldn’t allow that. But if you want to draft for the future, you need to know where to go. That’s why I told him as early as I could, because there was also this young lineman out of Iowa named Robert Gallery. We were trying to leave the team in good shape.
“What we found out later, those players weren’t capable of stepping in. They didn’t have the talent or whatever to pick up where we left off.”
Lincoln, we need to talk more often.
