NFL 25 Dream Teams that ended up being failures
By Nick Villano
NFL 25 Dream Teams that ended up being failures: 14. 1981 Oakland Raiders
The 1980 Oakland Raiders were the Super Bowl champs. They won it with Jim Plunkett, who has one of the most bizarre stories in the history of the league. Plunkett came into the season as the starter, which seems like an obvious distinction, but the team fell apart pretty quickly, and the Raiders would replace Plunkett with former first-round pick Marc Wilson.
That’s right, the Raiders replaced the Super Bowl-winning quarterback just six games later. Wilson ended up leading an offense that finished with 28 interceptions. A ball hawking defense was not getting the picks it got the season prior. Everything came crashing down on top of Al Davis’ head.
The Raiders were hoping that another quarterback replacement (Plunkett replaced Dan Patstroni one year prior) would spurn the team into contention, but it wasn’t meant to be. They lost the last two games of the season to finish the year 7-9 and missed the playoffs.
It’s one of the underrated Super Bowl hangovers in history. The Raiders just mismanaged this thing to heck, and it directly led to underwhelming results on the field. The offense as a whole did pretty much nothing. No receiver got over 700 yards. Kenny King was underwhelming at running back, but that ended up working out. The Raiders took Marcus Allen in the NFL Draft, and he helped them win a Super Bowl.